Dead Space: Humanity's Last Chance, Novella 1
by Brother Rafen
Summary: Isaac Clarke rescues his nephew Takashi, and together, with an ever growing (and decreasing) cast of characters, They fight their way through the city, a military base, the suburbs, and various other areas, picking up survivors along the way. Although, not all survivors are friendly... Beta's: MusicGamer, EcoSeeker247 (If you watched HOTD, you can skip the first two chapters)
1. That agrivating itch

**Hey guys! I'm kind of new to this whole fan-fiction thing. This first one i'm trying out is a Dead Space/HOTD crossover. I'll try to make it funny but really i'm mainly going for story here and i might borrow a few jokes here and there, but the crossover idea is purely mine. I don't have an editor yet so I apologize in advance for any grammar problems. Support and critique are welcome and appreciated!**

**BTW this takes place in 2012 on earth and starts in the HOTD setting. The marker was found in a park near the school and everyone has RIGs. Plasma cutters and stasis exist t oo. Also i'm going to try to make the Necromorphs more zombie like.(move slower, headshot kill only, biting will infect you etc.) well thats it! I'll only put brief intros from now on. Grazie and ciao!**  
><strong>Quick after note, after a few chapters, the feel of the fic changes completely, more deadspace, barely any HOTD. I'm putting this in while writing chapter 13 so yeah.<strong>

**EDIT: The rest of the chapters are longer and I intend to, on request, start making chapters anywhere between 3000-6000 words. Also, feel free to request characters from DS that you want to see. I may ****oblige. Oh and I now have two betas. (4/3/13)**

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><p><em>Chapter 1: An agrivating itch<em>

I stayed up late playing left 4 dead the night before shit got real

Life sucks. Once again I'm standing on the fire escape at my school, Fujimi Academy, sulking about how crappy life is. The girl i've loved my entire life, Rei Miyamoto, started acting wierd lately.

Then she tells him that they can't see each other anymore with no explanation. And now she's dating a guy named Hisashi! WHen we were kids we had pinky sweared that when we were older, we would get married. What a bitch. I mean really, what has this world come to if a solid pinky promise means nothing to someone?

Just then, I heard someone coming down the stairs. "Hey Takashi!" oh god, it was Saya. "Oh, look, it's that irritating bitch," i said under my breath. "What did you just call me?" said Saya accusingly.

Crap. "I said I have an aggrivating itch!" Smooth, I know. "Yeah, okay," she said sarcastically. "What do you want, Saya?" I asked irritably. I didn't feel like dealing with this crap today.

"you're pathetic, you know that?" Oh, great here we go again. Well at least she was always honest. Pfft. "Whenever you're depressed, you come here and sulk. God you're so pathetic that it's painful"

God, she was annoying. "You need to get over her already! You know there are other girls out there besides Rei, granted none of them would want to go out with you." "Just screw off,"I said,"I don't need to deal with your crap." I turned around when I said that and boy, if looks could kill, I'd be dead.

While she was ranting, I was getting distracted by her huge boobs and not really paying attention to what she was saying. Geez, they were like melons. They looked amazing when she was standing up straight, but when she was bending slightly over... wow.

She must have realized what i was doing and stopped talking to stare at me menacingly. "Have you been listening to me?" she yelled,"And my eyes are up here!" she said pointing to her eyes.

Me being the genius I am replied by saying " no they're not, you must have misplaced them." I didn't even see her hand move. All of a sudden my face was stinging and really hot. She slapped me so hard that i probably had a hand mark on my face for the rest of the day.

My RIG probably wasn't to happy about my cheek either. "I hate pathetic people," she said. "I'll come back when you man up a bit!" And with that she walked back up the stairs and out of sight.

"Thank god," I muttered. I don't think I could have survived much more of that. As I stared into the distance, I was about to discover that surviving her rant was the least of my worries. Surviving the horrors i was about to watch come to pass would be much harder to survive. Little did I know that I was about to witness the beggining of the end.

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><p><strong>Well there ya go. Chapter one of "Highschool of the Dead Space. Hope you enjoyed it! Please review and praise or critique, whichever one you think i deserve! Also please participate in my poll! theres only one so its easy to find. It's just a simple question about what I should do. Ciao and Grazie!<strong>

_**-Rafen of the Blood**_


	2. Necro zombies a gogo

**Hey people! well here's chapter 2. It's considerably longer than the first. enjoy and review!**

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><p><em>Chapter 2: Necro-Zombies a go-go<em>

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><p>There was some wierd drunk guy banging on the front gate. The gym teachers had come out to investigate. One of them had a pole and one had a plasma cutter. Wait... why'd he bring a plasma cutter? The guy didn't look that dangerous. It didn't look like the guy was responding to the teachers at all.<p>

The buffer of the four teachers grabbed the guy by the shirt through the bars of the gate and slammed him into it. The guy fell to the ground and started to writhe around. Did the teacher hurt him that bad?

What happened next would scar me for the rest of my life.

The teacher who had slammed the into against the gate knelt down to see if the guy had taken any serious damage. The guys RIG was gray with no light in it. That should have meant he was dead, yet he was still moving. That made no sense. He should have been dead!

All of a sudden, with no warning at all, the guy stood up and grabbed the teacher through the gate and held him there. Except it wasn't his arms that he grabbed him with. Two small arms had exploded out of his stomach. Most of his organs were showing behind the arms. I just stood there horrified as I watched the horror unfold.

I thought that I was going to throw up but his horrifying transformation wasn't over yet. His arms started to extend and two large blades that horrifyingly looked like they were made out of bones burst from the palms of his hands. The female gym teacher was screaming her head off as her comrade was attacked by the man-creature while the two other guy teachers looked on in horror.

The now deranged and, honestly, fucked up looking man started stabbing the teacher in the back over and over again until the man had a steady stream of blood runnIng down his back. He then leaned through the bars and bit the teacher on the arm. The teacher had already been screaming but now he was howling in pain. It was only the man creature holding the teacher that kept him on his feet. His RIG steadily went from blue to yellow to red and then blinked until it was only a dull gray.

The teacher with the plasma cutter finally snapped out of his horror-inflicted daze and rose the plasma cutter in his hand. If it hadn't been for the three holo-sights coming from the end of the tool, he would have missed the creature completely. As it was, it took three shots before he shot off the things head. He had shot off one of the arms in the process.

I still didn't have a name for these things yet but, honestly, that wasn't high on my list of concerns. It was like a necrotic zombie thing. That's it, necro-zombie! Yeah, I'm genious. Anyway, the creatures head went flying when the teacher shot it and both the necrozombie and the buffer teacher fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.

The other teachers crowded around their downed comrade. The teacher lay motionless on the ground as the female teacher knelt down beside him and started crying. All of a sudden the man started to stir and the teachers began to look hopeful for a moment before the truly horrific happened.

The teachers had thought the danger was gone and had let their guard down, thinking that they were safe. Oh how wrong they were. The downed teacher's stomach exploded as two small arms like the ones on the other man burst from him. His normal arms then bent forward as two large bone like blades burst from his hands exactly like thwither man.

His small arms grabbed the girl teacher and started clawing at her back with his blade hands. I could hear her horrible screaming from here. The new necro zombie then reached up and bit her on the neck. As her windpipe was severed she stopped screaming and fell to the ground as the necro zombie stabbed her now dead body over and over agaias until she finally became one of them.

The other two teachers, obviously thinking the situation was to much for them to handle, had run to the school building in fear. I don't know why I did what I did next. I guess I still loved Rei. I ran straight to her classroom on the third floor. I didn't really have a plan so I just slammed the door open and slowly walked over to Rei's desk like the badass I am. Oh, great, I forgot, Hisashi is in this class.

At her desk I grabbed her arm, yanked her out of her desk, and told her that we needed to GTFO. "what the hell do you think you're doing?" she yelled. "What's it look like I'm doing?" I said. "I'm giving you the opportunity to become a main, if not slightly bitchy, main character." Duh. "I don't care! It's the middle of class! We can't just-" I turned around and slapped her.

"What the hell Takashi! How dare you slap my pretty little face!" she looked really pissed now. "Oh, I dare!" I replied. " Now watch me do it again!" *smack* "And again!" *smack* "And again!" *smack* Damn, that felt good. "Takashi that's enough!" Damn, it was Hisashi. Stupid prick had to go and ruin my fun. Well at least he dies next chapter! "What the hell is going on Takashi?" asked Hisashi.

"Two teachers just got killed by the front gate." "The front gate just killed two teachers?" Rei said, horrified, "That's terrible!" Wow she's dumber than a pound of bricks. "No," I said, "they got killed NEAR the front gate. Anyway we need to go. Now." They were both quiet for a moment before Hisashi said "Alright, let's go."

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><p><strong>Hey guys! Here's chapter 2! Hope you liked it! I'm already half way done with chapter 3 so that will also be up soon. Review review review! Criticism is also welcome! Only constructive though please! Grazie and ciao!<strong>

-Rafen of the Blood


	3. GTFO

**Well here's chapter 3! Hope you enjoy and please review!**

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><p><em>Chapter 3: GTFO<em>

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><p>As we ran we heard the teacher yelling after us to come back. After we were running for a while, we heard the loudspeaker crackle to life. *<em>schhh* "Attention staff and students, there has been a slight disturbance by the front gate. Please remain calm as we evaluate the problem. Please stay in your class- hey- wait!- g-get away from me! No, stop, stop! Aaaggghhh-! *schhh*<em>

His screaming was abrubtly cut off as he started to gurgle blood. We could here him being ripped apart and a low pitched growling before the speaker cut out. After I moment of silence I said, "Well, it sucks to be him." The other two just looked at me. "What?" I asked. Hisashi just shook his head and said, "Come on, let's get some weapons and get the hell out of here." "There's a storage closet near here. There's probably something useful in them" added Rei. "Good idea, let's go." said Hisashi.

Meanwhile...

(Isaac Clarke POV)

This, has been a _really _bad day. When I got to the building me and my team were supposed to work on, no one showed up. So I had to get on my standard engineers RIG, grab a plasma cutter, and get to work all on my lonesome. Which sucked because we had to replace two building supports that had importantcables running through them. Fun fun. After working for four hours, my team showed up.

Except they were ever so slightly different.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. They smelled like dead bodies mixed with sour milk. I turned the air purifier on in my suit to block out the smell. They also all had two sword like blades coming from their hands which were covered in blood. The bottom of their jaws were missing and there was a big bloody cavity where it should have been.

In total there were three of them, each with two small arms bursting from their stomach area. They started to hobble towards me at a decent clip while growling and slashing at the air. How long had they been there? Guess it didn't really matter. I just needed to get past them somehow and get to thestaircase. My only choice was to take them out.

I rose my plasma cutter and turnedson the laser sights. I shot the closest one straight in the chest. Then I shot it again. Nothing. It didn't look like body shots were doing much of anything. My hands were shaking as I backed up a bit, switched the plasma cutter to horizontal, and shot off it's head. Luckily this seemed to take it down, though it was still twitching a bit on the ground.

I had never thought about using a plasma cutter as a weapon but I'm glad I did now. I aimed for the second one, strafing them slightly. It took four shots but I finally shot off the second ones head, cutting off its arms in the process. Finally, I aimed for the third one, the holo sights wavering around its neck. I shot but barely missed. It's head was loosely on its shoulders.

It would probably only take one more shot to kill it. I aimed and fired but nothing happened. I fired again. Still nothing. What the hell was going on with the plasma cutter? Crap, that's right, my plasma cutter only holds eight plasma energy. Damn and I didn't have any more shots. I was going to need to hit its head off.

I waited until it rose its arms to attack and then rushed in. I dodged it's claw attacked mostly but it grazed my back. Quickly, I grabbed the creatures shoulder, pulled back, and punched it in the face with the plasma cutter as hard as I could. It's head went flying, showering blood everywhere.

As it finally fell to the floor, writhing a bit, I kicked its body away and sunkdisown to the floor. What the fuck just happened? What the hell were those things? Was it only here that thode things had attacked? I really hoped so because I don't know how I would fare against more of them. Just to be safe I grabbed four clips of plasma energy and a rivet gun. I grabbed as much amo as I could carry along with two medikits and went to the stairs.

As I got closer to the stairs I could hear more of them. I slowly opened the door and looked around. There was one On the steps right below me and another one two stories up. Crap, I had to go up stairs to the lobby, but I needed to get past at least one of these things. And if I killed one, the other would hear me.

I decided to take out the one below me first. I raised the rivet gun to see how affective it would be against these things. The single laser sight came up to rest against the first creatures knee. I shot it clean off with one rivet as it fell to the ground roaring. The other one, noticing its comrade being attacked roared and came walking down the steps, slicing the air.

I quickly shot off the downed creatures head and turned to face the oncoming one. I switched back to the plasma cutter and took aim at the creatures legs again. As I was about to shot, the creature jumped slightly to the side, making my shot miss. I aimed again and right when the creature jumped to the side I adjusted my aim and shot off both it's legs in one shot. I then finished it off with a shot to the head and reloaded both of my new weapons. I walked up two stories to the lobby(the building had an annoyingly large basement area) and looked out the window of the door to see if the coast was clear.

What I saw made my blood run cold and my heart drop to my stomach.

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><p><strong>Hey guys! Sorry this took so long to get out.I've been overwhelmed at school with projects plus I've volunteered to write a short story for wolf-x-hunter(there's a good chance I spelled that wrong) about the first four days of Terrance being on the sprawl. Read his story Deadspace:Trio! It's really good and I'll have the prologue for that story up later. Read and review both and thanks!<strong>

**-Rafen of the Blood**


	4. Life sucks

**Hey people! I am so sorry for the long ass delay. I've been really sick and typing wasn't exactly on my list of things to do to relax. Hopefully the next chapter will be out faster. Read and review!**

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><p><em>Chapter 4: Life sucks<em>

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><p>There was at least ten of them, randomly moving around the lobby. Or what was left of the lobby. What had once been a peacful lobby, filled with conversing people was now a gore stained tomb infested with monsters. The3y had piled up the bodies in the middle of the room, some aimlessly stabbing at them with their long sword like arms. All of a sudden, a man came running out of a hiding spot behind some storage crates in the corner of the room. He dashed for the door but no sooner did he come out of hiding was he stabbed and pulled in by one of the creatures. As he was screaming, the creature leaned in and bit him on the neck. His screaming was replaced by a horrible gurgling noise as he died. Seconds later, his dead body began to jerk and spasm as his stomach exploded and two small arms burst out. His arms began to bend as two large blades burst from his palms.<p>

The mans jaw also broke off and was replaced by a group of small writhing tentacles. It was horrifying. Just one bite from them and you become one of those, those _things._ I needed to be really careful now when I fought them. But I was about to find out that the horrors didn't end there. Right after that, a grayish flying creature came into the room and landed in front of the piles of bodies. All of a sudden, a large needle like proboscis went flying down towards the body closest to the creature seemingly coming from the things "head". It had stuck the proboscis into the head of a legless corpse at the edge of the pile.

The creature lifted the body a little bit into the air and both it and the body began jerkily moving as the body began to change. Where legs should have been, a long, bladed tail started to grow. The bodies head also split back as four long fangs grew from where the canine teeth were. It finally fell to the ground, dazed for a minute, but then got up and stared straight at the door I was hiding behind. It then leaped up at the door and slammed its head through the glass. If I needed a que to get my ass moving, this was definitely it! I kicked the door open, sending the leaper flying back and ran for the door.

I shot off the legs of the three necromorphs in the path the the door and ran straight at the door, jumping throug the glass doors with my arms up as the glass shattered around me like a badass. There were more down the street that had heard the glass shatter and had turned to roar at me. The leaper from inside was also getting up again and regaining it's balance as it prepared to run at me again. I ran down the other street as I noticed burning buildings and could hear people screaming in the distance. Behind me, I could hear the twenty or so creatures coming towards me along with the leaper running after me. Unlike the other creatures, it appeared that this tailed one could move pretty fast.

I heard one last roar closer to me as the creature jumped on me as I turned around to face it. Luckily it hadn't knocked away my plasma cutter from my hand but it was keeping me distracted as it made numerous atempts to bite my face off. I managed to get my hand free of its claws for a split second and raised the plasma cutter to the creatures face and fired. It's head was cut in half with the top half lying next to me on the pavement. It went realing back, dead for the most part. It's body still jerked a bit but it made no atempts to crawl after me. I quickly turned around again to run as the group of blade handed creatures came hobling towards me.

I managed to get down the block and through an alley way to another street littered with broken down cars and fires. Luckily I had lost the group of slashers and there was only one on this street but it didn't seem to see me. I Shined the laser sights on the plasma cutter in its face. No reaction. I then threw a rock at it. Still nothing. Once the rock hit the pavement behind it though, it turned around and growled and began to walk in the direction of the noise. So the slashers could only hear you. That was info that would come in handy. But if these guys can't see, why could the leaper? Either way, this would make it easier to move around. I just had to be extremely careful when I walked not to make noise. What were these things and where had they come from? I couldn't worry about that right now though. I needed to find a place to stay or a group to travel with.

The latter was probably a better option as finding a suitable place to stay in this hell probably wasn't an option. I had a nephew who went to school near hear. Takashi Komuro I think. He went to Fujimi Academy or something like that. Him being the closest family I had in Japan, finding him was probably my best option. The school was near a park with snow blossoms near it so all I had to do to find it was to go in the direction the pedals were coming from. That shouldn't be to hard. As I began to walk, I noticed a light orange glow coming from around a corner. As I turned the corner, I spotted a store along with two slashers. I quickly dispatched them both with the rivet gun and then reloaded both weapons before going over to the store. It was a pretty well stocked store and had plasma energy and rivets that I bought as much as I could carry of. There was also seven different available RIGs available. THere were the standard level one throug five mining RIGs and a white military RIG along with a rather expensive blue security pattern advanced suit. I only had enoug money to buy the level four suit but It would have to do for now.

As the store opened up and I stepped inside, magnetic locks in thestore fastened to my arms as the door closed and I was enveloped in a bright white light. The door opened again as I stepped out, admiring my new armor and making sure everything was working right as the visor closed around my was a cool design for a mining RIG with three thin visors and three bars that went down the front, leaving three small "horns" at the top of the helmet. Yes, this would do. As I made my way to the school, the only thing going throug my mind was this. Why the hell was this happening and is there any way to end it? I guess only time will tell.

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><p><strong>Again sorry this took so long to get out! Also, it was brought to my attention that I had made some grammar errors in previous chapters as well as in Trio. That's proibably because I write about half of this on my Ipod touch and it's auto correct is really messed up. I've typed in normal words missing only one letter and it will auto correct it as something completely different. It's really annoying and easy to miss but I'll be more careful from now on. This chapter was written completely on the computer so there shouldn't be to many errors. Also, I noticed that the sizing on the Ipod for paragraphs and on the computer are completely different. What can look like five lines on the Ipod will only come out as one or two on the computer so sorry for the wierd layout in some chapters. Anywho, R&amp;R! Grazie e ciao!<strong>

**-Rafen of the Blood**


	5. Death of that guy

**Wow it's embarrassing that it took this long to get this out. I'm dropping my other story btw. Sorry this took so long to get out. We just recently moved so its been he'll with that and offers on the house and all that bs. Anyone who has moved will understan. Now that school has started I'll actually have anot more time to work on this. Oh and check out my story on fictionpress too! I'll give you the name when I upload the Prologue. But for now, enjoy!**

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><p>(<em>Takashi POV)<em>

We got really lucky with the supply closet Rei had mentioned. There was a plasma cutter with thirty two shots that I took, Rei made a make shift javelin from a broom and mister I'm only going to survive for the first episode said he didn't need a weapon. Fine by me, he would just die faster and Rei's sweet ass would be all mine.

As we started to head to the roof we saw one of those necromorphs outside attacking some girl. We didn't stop long enough to see details of the horrible scene. When we got outside, we steas teacher walking away from us. Except he had already changed. He had the two large blade arms on his shoulders and two small arms in his stomach. He didn't seem to see us. We tried to quietly get around it, holding our breaths, hearts pounding as we got within feet of the thing.

It looked like we were going to make it until (#####) caught his jacket on a pole, making a loud ripping noise. Almost instantly the creature spun around and lunged at him, biting his shoulder and clawing at his back, leaving deep gashes. "Takashi, do something, quickly!" screamed Rei. As fast as I could, i pulled out the plasma cutter, took aim and shot the things head clean off, causing it too lose its grip and collapse. I had accidentally shot his shoulder a bit too, but that was the least of his worries.

The wounds the creature had given him looked really bad. He had cOllapsed against One of the rails, with blood everywhere. He probably wouldn't last much longer considering how much blood he had lost. Rei was kneeling beside him, crying as he tried to confort her. "I guess this is it," he said. It really was upsetting seeing him die, even if I didn't like him. Something told me that we would need all the help we could get to survive this. And losing him meant one less person to watch our backs. He was going to turn. and I had to stop it. Raising the plasma cutter I told Rei to move. Her eyes widened as she realized what I was about to do.

"No you can't!" she said, "we can still save him, we, we just need to cover up his wounds! And, and, and stop the bleeding! then he'll be fine!" her voice was shaking more than she was. I could see the pain in her eyes but she needed to move. "Rei listen to me," he said, holding her face. "I don't want to turn into one of them. Let Takashi do it." He was trying his best but she still didn't look like she wanted to do."Takashi," he said, looking right at me, "take care of her." I just nodded, knowing I would have to protect her now.

"I'll make it quick." I said, raising the plasma cutter again, having the three laser sights resting on his neck. "Goodbye Rei," and then I shot him. His head popped off with a sickening noise and rolled off, leaving a sparatic trail of blood. I just let Rei cry for a few minutes. "We should go," I said. "Some of them might have heard that and will be coming this way." She weakly nodded and got up, picking up her makeshift weapon and following me off the roof. We needed to get out of the school now. It was clear from looking from the roof that the city had gone to hell too. We needed out, now.

While we were running off the roof I thought I saw what looked like a man in an enginiers suit running towards the school.

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><p><strong>Well sorry for the crappy chapter. And for taking for frieking ever to publish. To Kyrogue, I'm sorry that this is two weeks late. Stuff came up and i haven't been able to type. Hopefully the next chapter will be out sooner then this. This was really just a filler chapter. I had to kill off the guy that I can't remember the name of and are to lazy to look up his name. Anyway, next chapter won't be crap and will involve Isaac and the rest of the crew. So R&amp;R and thanks!<strong>


	6. Return of a badass

**Hey there people! I'm trying to get this chapter out as fast as I can so here you go!**

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><p><em>Isaac POV<em>

I had finally made it to the school. There were a few just inside the gates. It looked like they had been smashed open by someone, or something. It looked like there were three in total, two slashers and an infector. I would need to take them out quickly. Switching to my rivet gun, I took aim at the closest slasher's head, letting the opal blue beam to rest on the back of it's head. I took a breath, steadied my hand, and pulled the trigger, taking it's head clean off. The other two heard the shot and started to look for where it came from, not noticing me behind the overturned car. I took aim again at the other slasher and took it's head off as well.

The infector turned it's "head" towards me and leapt into the air, coming straight for me. "Shit, shit, shit!" I said under my breath, quickly getting up and pulling out my plasma cutter and ran towards the gates, aiming at the infector as it dove down over and over again, trying to slash at me and grab me. I aimed and clipped one of it's wings, causing it to spiral to the still came after me with its one wing. I ran at it, shot its head off and curb stomped what was left.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw something else move. Instinctively, I swiveled and raised the plasma cutter to what I thought was another one of "them". Instead it was a scarred girl, who gasped and put her hands up when I aimed at her. Putting down the plasma cutter, I said "sorry. Are you all right? What's your name?" Shaking, she responded, "A-arisia. I'm a student. W-who are you?" "I'm Isaac Clarke, an engineer. Here, come with me," I said. "ok," she said. She was covered in blood, but it didn't look like she was bitten. I would have to keep an eye on her though, just in case. " Um, Mr. Clarke, why are we going back into the school? Theres a lot of them in there. It would be very dangerous."

"My nephew goes to this school," I said, I want to find him, see if he's okay." "What's his name?" she asked. "Takashi Komuro," I said. Her eyes widened when I said this. My heart sank. "Did something happen to him?" I asked, afraid of the answer. "Well, right before they attacked, he came into my class and took Rei and her Boyfriend with him. I think they were going to the roof." "Show me the way there," I said. She nodded and we started into the main building, up to the roof.

_Meanwhile_

"Rei come on!" I said. She was still in a bit of a daze from what happened. "I know!" she said, pressing up against the wall next to me. We were about half way to the gates but the hall in front of us had six of them muling about, one of which had a tail with a blade on the end. "This doesn't look good," I said. I only had fifteen shots on the plasma cutter, so if I shot at these things I would need to be pretty accurate. "Takashi, lets find another way. It would be suicide to take on six of them!" She was right, it was nuts. But going straight through was the quickest way to the gates and to freedom. "Takashi, are you even listening to me?" she harshly whispered. "Yeah, give me a minute, I'm thinking!" She gave me an annoyed look and then looked away.

Should I risk it? My hands weren't shaking anymore, so I think my aim would be pretty good. If I took out the closest one, which was about eight feet away first, the stalker behind it would notice and I would have to quickly take it out. But it looked like it could move pretty fast. Would I be able to take it out fast enough before it got to me? The others were farther down the hall and shouldn't be as difficult to kill but still, there were six of them.

"Have you thought about it yet?" Rei said, annoyed. "Yeah," I said, "I'm going in." "What?!" she hissed, her voice barely a whisper. "You're insane! Don't you dare go out there. Takashi, are you listening to me? Takashi!" Ignoring her, I got up and raised the plasma cutter and quickly took off the first ones head. The stalker charged, faster then I thought. I shot it three times, missing. And then it jumped. It quickly covered the distance between us as I tried to shoot it once in mid air. I missed and it slammed me to the ground. I was barely able to keep hold of the plasma cutter. as I struggled to keep it's jaws away from my face.

As it snapped at my head, i tried to keep it away while raising the arm with the plasma cutter up to its face. Finally getting my arm up, I shoved the plasma cutter into its face. "Go to hell!" I yelled before shooting three shots into its head, its head exploding into an even more unrecognizable mass as i got spattered with blood. I shoved its corpse off of me and got up, aiming at the other four. They had heard everything and were making their way towards me at a steady pace, slashing at the air with their claws. I quickly took out the third one, popping it's head off with two shots then the other two with another four shots. The last one was only a few feet away as I shot it, missing by an inch.

I shot again but nothing happened. Again and again I shot but nothing happened. I hand't considered amo when I charged them. The last one grabbed me and tried to claw at my back. I was barely holding it back. Was this how I was going to die? Helpless against some creature? It raised it's head getting ready to bite me. I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable when all of a sudden its head exploded, it's headless corpse went slack and fell to my feet. I looked up to see a man in an engineer suit with a plasma cutter and a teenage girl at the end of the hall.

"You okay?" I heard the man say "Yeah, I'm fine," I said "Who are you?" I said as Rei walked up behind me. "It's me Takashi," the man said as he began to walk down the hall as his helmet slid back. "Isaac Clarke."

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><p><strong>Well what do you think? I know I said that I was going to introduce the other four but I'm considering leaving them out and replacing them wit OCs. Granted it's really you guys who get to decide. So review or PM me if you want me to introduce Saya, Saeko and the others. But I kind of want to get them the hell out of the school and don't want to waste another chapter on character into. So let me know what you think. R&amp;R and thanks for reading!<strong>**  
><strong>


	7. Enter the Ausie

**Hey guys! Sorry it took so long to get this out! I've been having family issues andnother crap going on so big sorry to Quarmbone and Kyrouge! (Sorry if i butchered your names.) Well here's chapter seven!**

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><p>(Isaac)<p>

"Oh my god, uncle!" Takashi walked up to me, giving me a hug. "I'm glad you're safe Takashi. I was working on a building in the city when those things attacked. I barely got out myself. I came right here though to see if you were safe." "I'm glad you made it! Me and Rei and..." He paused for a second, something flashing in their eyes. "We were trying to escape. I'm running low on amo. We could definitely use the help." He glanced behind me and gestured to Arisia. "Who's this?"

"I-i'm Arisia. Nice to meet you." She was shy it seemed. The girl, Rei stepped forward. "So you're Takashi's uncle? Where did you get your armor?" She asked, looking me up and down. She was aimlessly swinging what looked like a make shift spear at her side. "Yeah, I'm an engineer. The plasma cutter and bolt gun i had on me as well as my engineer suit. I stopped at a store on my way here to upgrade it. As much as I would love to talk, we really need to get out of here. I took out if few of those things on my way here but new ones might have stumbled inside. And i don't really want to stick around to see a large group of those things block us off." Takashi and Rei nodded, determination in their eyes, masking their fear. "Do you have any extra amo first?" Takashi asked, "I only have one more clip of twenty." I grabbed two of the five clips i had and handed them to him. "Here that should be enough. Now we have to get moving. Lets go!" "Right! They said in unison.

The school was surprisingly quiet considering what was going on. When we had first broke in, there were a lot of them aimlessly stumbling around the blood stained halls. We had left a few that we could avoid but they were all gone. Where were they? "It's quiet," said Takashi, putting my thoughts to words. "To quiet," I finished. "Where the hell are they?" "Well they aren't our problem right now," said Rei, nervously looking around.

All of a sudden Arisia let out a muffled scream as she covered her mouth. Quickly, we all whirled around to fight off what was there. But there was nothing. "Look, over there!" She said, pointing to a limp necromorph propped up against the door leading outside. "It's dead," I told her calmly, lowering the plasma cutter. "You don't need to worry about it. It looks like that's an exit though." That would definitely make getting out of here faster. " Takashi, help me move it out of the way." "Yeah," he replied as we walked up to the corpse.

"Ok you lift it from that-shit!" I was cut off as the supposedly dead necromorph leapt up and grabbed onto me, pinning me to the ground. Before I could react, a fist sized piece of metal flew through the air and stabbed it in the eye, causing it to lurch back in pain. As quickly as the first, another two blades lodged themselves in the creatures neck, the second one severing it's head. Heart beating fast, I got up and looked for where the blades had come from. Standing next to Rei, Arisia was standing with her legs bent holding a few fist sized shards of metal in her hand from a broken air vent.

"Holy shit," Takashi said. "That was incredible! How did you do that?" She just looked at the floor blushing. "My father was a general. He made me learn how to use various small blades and taught me how to use small arms." " That'll come in handy," I said, shooting the things legs off just to be safe. "Here, take the rivet gun. If we're gonna get through this, you need to be able to defend yourself. Maybe we can get you a knife, too." "Thanks," she said taking the gun and rivets from my hand.

As we stepped outside into the stagnant, dead air, making this bleak day even worse. But That wasn't the first thing i noticed. I could here gun shots coming from around the corner as well as screaming. "Do you hear that?" I said. "It sounds like a pulse rifle, maybe more than one." "Lets check it out!" said Takashi. Raising the plasma cutter, he ran towards the noise, with us close behind. As we turned the corner, ready to fight, we saw two men in riot gear surrounded by five stalkers.

The larger of the two men expertly took out of of the stalker closest to him, taking off it's head and arms. At there feet lay three dead human bodies dressed in riot suits with a few dead slashers near them. Apparently the entire team hadn't been as lucky as these two. One of the stalkers leapt at the smaller of the two men, letting out a roar as it soared through the air, eyes fixed on its target with it's arms outstretched. The smaller man aimed and fired, ripping of it's head, but in the last few seconds of "life" that it had, it lashed out with it's serated tail, slicing the mans head clean off. He didn't get a chance to scream.

Cursing, the bigger man backed up against the wall, three stalkers left. Before the creatures could attack, Takashi and I ran towards them, screaming with Rei and Arisia close behind. I quickly shot the arm on the one in the center as they turned to face us. Howling in pain, the creature darted forward and lashed it's tail at me. I barely managed to dodge it as i ran forward, curb stomping it's head off and giving it a few more rounds to chew on just in case. To both sides of me I could see Takashi taking out the left one with ease, only using three rounds and Rei and Arisia Taking out the one to the right. Rei had it pinned to the ground with the spear while Arisia shot it's limbs off.

Panting, I took my helmet off, giving my heart a minute to return to it's normal pace. "Are you okay?" I asked the man, as he let his own helmet recede into his suit. He was about six and a half feet tall, towering over the rest of us. He had short brown hair and dark brown eyes and a five o'clock shadow. He looked pretty well pit together. "Yeah, i'm fine mate," he grunted. His voice was rediculously deep and gruff, and by the sound of it, he was Australian. "Thanks, you must be survivors from the school, right?" He quickly looked at the four of us, checking out our equipment. "Yeah," said Takashi, "we're all that's alive that we've seen. We were just leaving. Going back inside would be suicide." He considered this for a moment, rubbing His chin. "Me and my group were supposed to go to the school and pick up any survivors we could on the way, get everyone we can out of the school, and get back to the base. But from what you're saying, we should probably just go back to base, try to find some survivors on the way there."

"You Came to help us? Is there anyone else out there alive?" Arisia looked hopeful for a moment. "There are still people out there, but probably not many. We heard guns in the distance on our way here but all that we encountered ourselves were those things. It looks like there are different kinds too, who knows how many. It also apears that the slashers can't see us, only hear us." "Yeah, I noticed that," I said. "When I escaped the building I was working on to come here, I tried to sneak past the creatures that were in the loby. I almost made it until one of those stalkers came in. It saw me and allerted the others. Barely got out alive."

"Thanks for the info," he said. "The name's Peter. Peter Stanford. We need to leave now though. We've got a lot of ground to cover and I don't want to have to fight to many of these things. Just don't get in my way or else. I can't have any liabilities, understood?" He said, sternly looking at us all. We nodded, slightly weary of our new acuantance. Me and Takashi shared a look before following him out the gates into the hell that had become our city. We were just getting started...

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><p><strong>Well guys, again, sorry this was so late! I'll have the next chapter up as soon as I can. And still send in those OCs! The more characters the merrier. Oh and as a last note, the riot gear is a replacement for the military gear, (not sure if that will show up), but its pretty much the same and says 'RIOT' on the left shoulder. Plus it has a personal sized riot shield in the left arm. Anyways, thanks for reading! Please review and ciao!<strong>


	8. A new player enters the game

**Hey people! I'm tryin' to get this one out faster than my last three. Maybe actually keep some of you 2,000 viewers! Thats right, you awesome people got me to 2,000 views! And at least 600 of you have kept up with it! Thanks for being awesome!**

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><p>(Isaac)<p>

As we slowly made our way through the streets of the ruined city, we could here screams of agony in the distance as necromorphs doubtlessly hunted down what was remaining of the population. We had been at it for almost three hours, and dammit, I was tired. "We should probably find somewhere to stay the night," I suggested. "It's already getting dark and I don't know about you, but I really don't want to be around at night With those things crawling around." "He has a point," said Rei. Pondering it for a minute, Peter said," ok, that appartament building over there. It looks like it's relatively untouched And it's only about a ten minute walk from here. I say we go there, find a room on the second or third floor and camp out for the night. maybe even find some food."

"We should probablly clear out whatever area we're going to stay in. Make sure it's relatively safe." It was Takashi. He seemed to like the idea of hiding for the night. "What about you Arisia. What do you think?" I asked. "I'll do what everyone else is doing I guess." She said, who voice still barely a whisper. "Well it's decided," Said Peter. "Lets go."

...

(?)

As I sat in my small apartment, alone with nothing but my walls to keep me company, I could hear the creatures shifting around on the floors below. I hadn't taken a step outside since the outbreak almost twelve hours ago. _Had it really only been twelve hours?_ I thought to myself, holding my ornately carved short bow, one of the only two items that could protect me from the creatures outside. I had watched it all unfold from my window and the peep hole on my door. I had watched in horror as my neighbors were bitten or infected by those flying freaks and proceeded to rip each other apart, some of them turning into More messed up forms than the others.

I had enough food for the next three days but after that, I would have to leave. I could fend for myself against those normal sized monsters, but a few hours ago, I could hear something around the bottom of the building. Something big. And whatever it was, I didn't want to fight it off with a bow and a pistol. It would probably be a better idea to leave tomorrow or the day after so that i could bring some food with me to survive a little longer until I found a food source. It wouldn't be the first time I was on my own in the "wild" fighting against a force much stronger and numerous than myself. Thinking back on that time two years ago... just thinking about made me cringe.

I clenched my fist around the bow, a new sense of determination running through my veins. I survived my past. I could survive this too. I got up off of my bed, rummaging around through my closet to find my old back pack. I found it underneath a small rectangular old box labeled _"for emergencies"_. I picked it up, examining the fist sized rectangular box in my hand. The contents were older than me and hadn't been touched in decades. The box itself was a deep red with a black blade etched onto the front of it. Keeping it closed was a clasp with a small lock attached to it. Putting the box back on top of my bag I picked up my bow and slid open a tiny and completely unnoticable hatch and shook the small key out of it.

Fingering it in my hand, I thought about unlocking the box and using its near sacred contents to help me survive. Clasping my fist around the key I closed my eyes, contemplating putting the key in the lock and turning it breaking a seal decades old. _No, _I thought to myself. _Not yet, not here._ Easing my grip on the key, I slid it back into it's compartment on my bow, passed down from generation to generation by my family, and closed the hatch. I wouldn't be using it yet. Sliding the box into the bag, I got up with the bag and walked over to my small kitchen, taking anything un perishable and putting it in the tan bag. Also grabbing any medical supplies that I could, I put them in a separate portion of the bag. I had plenty of rolls of bandages, some vaseline, some basic antibiotics, a dose of adrenaline, and some rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs. Hopefully, that would be enough.

Going back to my bed, I got as many energy packs for my pistol as I could and put them into the bag. Pulling out my quiver of arrows, I loaded it to the maximum capacity of fifty arrows and synced it up with the special remote controlled arrow head changer in the bottom of the quiver. Basically, it let me change what kind of tip the next arrow I would draw would have. It synced up to a special glove on my hand that controlled it. I had over twenty different arrow tips, and each one would most definitely come in handy at some point. Dropping the filled bag and quiver by my door, I plopped down onto my bed and started to nod off to get ready for the next day. I thought I would get a good night of uninterupted sleep. But screw me right? Little did I know but I had some company on the way. And they were going to change my life more than I could possibly imagine.

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><p><strong>Well there's the next chapter. Who is this mysterious archer? What connection will she have with the group? What was the huge ass thing lurking around the bottom floor? What was inside the red box? Where did that little <strong>**girl disappear to? Only time will tell, in this theatre of the DAMNED! Crappy reference detected. But seriously, R&R! and while I may eventually decide to include more HOTD characters along the way, they are all expendable, as well as my ten some odd other OCs submitted by my personal friends. SO DON'T GET ATTACHED TO ANYONE. Except Isaac. I can't kill him off, he's a frieking badass.**


	9. Home sweet home

**Well here's another chapter, and in such little time! I actually feel productive today! plus I have nothing better to do. Oh and I'm registering as a beta reader so if any of you new writers want a beta writer, I'm right here! Well anyway, here's the next chapter. Expect action.**

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><p>(Isaac)<p>

Outside of the apartment building, the five us us were all ducked behind a car, discussing our next course of action. "Ok", said Peter, "There are two slashers outside of the front doors. If they were it, we could just go up to them and I could cut their heads off with the help of Rei and then just head inside. Unfortunately, things are never that easy. There's a stalker hanging on to the side of the building, and based on past experiences, it can see us no matter what. Plus we've got those two baby like ones on the walls, lets call them lurkers, that we need to take care of. So here's the plan", It was very obvious he knew what he was doing. He had the three teens fixated on his every word. We were relying on him to guide us for the moment. And I was perfectly fine with that.

"Arisia can use some shards of metal that Isaac can cut out of this car using the built in micro laser in his suit to decapitate the two slashers that are by the front door and knock off the stalker from the side of the building so that Isaac and Takashi can shoot it's tail and head off when it hits the ground. Then I'll spray the those two lurkers up there with some fire and Rei can rush in with her javelin and stab the heads off of them when _they _fall. Any questions?" Arisia was the first to speak up. "While that is a very efficient plan, I don't think that that's the best course of action that we can take in a situation like this." "Oh?" said Peter, slightly surprised at Arisia's change in attitude. She had completely changed from just moments before. She had a calculating look in her eyes as she scoped out the building, as well as the enemies on it. It was like she was a different person.

"Well for one, It would make to much noise. Any necromorph near by would here the gunshots and then we would be at a bit of a disadvantage due to our lack of knowledge of the quantity of necromorphs that would come from around this area. We might be swarmed in a matter of minutes and wouldn't have any chance for survival. If I take the shards of metal, I could easily take out the two lurkers and the stalker in a matter of seconds. Then once they're dead, Rei can run from cover and take out one of the two slashers while I take out the other one close up, making little to no noise and not alerting any surrounding necromorphs of our presence. If somehow the slashers hear us and come after us, I could take a decent sized shard of metal and take them both out quickly at close range. Then all we would have to do is scope out the lobby, determine whether or not it's safe to enter since either way the doors will make noise, and if need be, take out any necromorphs inside. With the doors closed, we could use the plasma cutters and my rivet gun and your pistol captain Stanford on the ones inside since worrying about sound traveling wouldn't be as much of an issue inside."

We all just stared at her, our mouths agape. Really, what the hell happened to her being so quiet and shy? "What? did I say something wrong?" she said, blushing and returning to her timid, quiet self. "Where did that come from?" said Takashi, equally as shocked as me. Shaking his head, Peter looked at her. "That sounds like a good plan, but can you pull it off? I agree that it would be quieter, but can you really pull that off?" "She was able to decapitate one at school while it was latched onto Isaac in a matter of seconds. I think she could pull it off", she said, smiling at her. "All righty mates, lets do this", he said, his helmet unfolding to cover his face again. "Isaac, can you start with the metal shards? eight should be enough, right Arisia?" said Peter, nodding at Arisia. "She just nodded in response.

A few minutes later, I had eight relatively neat ten inch shards of metal in front of me. Some of them were still glowing lightly, pulsing with heat around the edges as they cooled down. "Here," I said, pulling a pair of small heavy duty gloves out of a small compartment on my engineer suit. "Put these on. They should tighten around your hand and wrist to better suit your hands shape so that they don't fall off. The shards are still hot, so if you picked them up without these, your fingers would burn off." She took them from my hand, saying thanks. As she put them on, the clasped themselves around her hand, making her flinch slightly.

She got up slightly, crouching by the edge of the car. "Just in case I mess up, aim at the two slashers." Me, Peter, and Takashi nodded, moving to position on the car, making careful not to be seen. Rei leaned out to the other side of the car, ready to run out and take out the slasher on the right. "Okay", said Arisia, pausing for a second, "Go!" She leapt up on top of the car jumping again when she landed doing a summersault through the air, throwing two of the shards at the two lurkers as she decended. The blades cut through the air, reaching their targets in a split second, severing the heads of the creatures before they had a chance to react.

By the time she hit the ground, the stalker had noticed her and jumped off the wall towards her. It closed the distance between the two of them in a second but just as it was about to clamp onto her, she spun around while diving under it and used one of the shards to slash it's underside open. As it hit the ground, she spun around again, and taking out three of the shards she launched them at the creatures, one of them taking off it's tail and the other two severing it's head. As it jerked around on the ground as it died Rei was already halfway to her slasher, running with her spear, ready to stab the slasher's head off. Arisia turned around and dashed towards her slasher. It was had already heard her and was already hobbling towards her, it's claws cutting the air. She jumped, going at least ten feat in the air, flipping once, and brought two more of blades slamming down into the creatures skull, skewering it in the pavement and decapitating it at the same time. She quickly jumped away to avoid the creatures flailing blade arms and let it fall to the ground. A few feet away from her, Rei had already taken hers out, swiping her spear through the air, the blood flying off of it.

As me and the other two came out from cover, Arisia went back to the body of the stalker, pulling the three blades out of it's fractured form and stuck them in her pockets, the metal cooled from the necromorph blood. The two used to decapitate the lurkers were still embedded in the wall, five stories above us. "That was amazing", said Peter. I could only imagine his face under that helmet, but if it was anything like mine, he probably looked dumbfounded. She had been amazingly graceful for but extremely powerful at the same time. It truly had been amazing. Picking up the last blade she blushed, returning to her sweet, innocent self. It was as if she were two different people, one who was shy and quiet and one who had the strategic brain of a general and the military grace of a seasoned military specialist.

"Ok, lets head inside", I said leading the group into the building. Before I opened the door, I looked through the glass to see if anything was inside. "It looks like there's only a slasher in the lobby", Takashi said before I could. I'll take it out", I said, pushing the double doors open, letting the others follow in behind me before closing the door. The slasher, hearing the door, turned towards us and started to growl as it limped in our direction. Raising my plasma cutter, I shot off it' legs and then it's head, letting it fall to the ground. "Lets look for a room on the third floor", said Takashi. "Its high enough that those things won't hear us from the ground and on a low enough floor that we can make a quick escape if we need to." "Then lets go," said Rei and we started to make our way towards the stairs and the next part of our Journey.


	10. A new player in the game

**Hey guys! It's chapter ten! (I feel so accomplished) Umm... new character this chapter? Maybe? I honestly don't know. I'm just kinda winging the whole story! Either this chapter or next chapter I'll introduce a new character into the fray. (Maybe.) Well heres chapter ten! If this took a while to get out, sorry, it's kind of a slow part. And I suck at writing slow parts so yeah. I'll make it really long though!**

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><p>(?)<p>

I was woken by the sound of gunshots below me. Maybe I was just hearing things? Tilting my head, I listened, waiting for another shot. And there it was, the faint noise of a pulse rifle going off somewhere downstairs. And by the sound of it, a custom one. There was also another kind of shot being fired. A power tool maybe? More importantly who were these people? More survivors looking for a place of refuge? It looked liked soon I would some new companions. Hopefully.

If they survived, they might decide to hide in my apartment. But with all the apartments in this building what were the odds, right? Well with the hell that had been unleashed on the world only hours prior, I'd say odds didn't really count for much anymore. Carefully, I picked up my bow and notched an arrow ready to defend myself if need be just in case they stumbled upon me and happened to be hostile. For a while, I just sat there and waited, not knowing what turn my life was about to take.

(Isaac)

As we slowly made our way up to the third floor, we were stopped numerous times by groups of necromorphs, each time making us take a detour, adding time to our trip, taking out a stray slasher here and there trying to make as little noise as possible. We did resort to using plasma cutters and the pulse rifle to take out some stragglers we found due to the close quarters. When we finally got to the stairwell for the second floor, we found that it had been crushed by some... thing smashing through it. Actually, There was a large section of wall that was missing right behind it, too. "What the hell do you think did that?" I said, motioning to the hole and debree. "I don't know," said Takashi, "But I definitely don't want to find out." "That's for sure," said Peter. "It looks like we can still get up if we could get that latter down here." He was pointing at a large ladder that must have been left by some workers when everything went to hell.

"I'll get it," said Arisia as she ran at the wall, jumping onto a small mound of rubble, she launched herself onto the the next floor, gracefully landing right next to the ladder. "That girl sure is something, isn't she?" said Peter watching her ease the ladder down so we could climb up it. "That's for sure", I said under my breath. There was something off about her... But what? "You coming uncle?", Takashi was already halfway up the ladder, everyone else already on the next floor. Shaking my head I walked to the ladder to join the others. It was probably nothing. I must just be nervous. I mean, Arisia wouldn't do anything to hurt us so there was nothing to worry about. Right? Anyway, I should be focusing on here and now. Clearing my head, I followed the rest of the group, now a bit ahead of me, to a seemingly random door that would be our shelter for the nearing night.

"Is this the room that we'll take for tonight?" said Rei. "It's as good as any really. It looks like it's untouched at least." I said, which wasn't true for the majority of the rest of the rooms. Many of them were covered in what could only be blood and almost all of them had broken doors, so they didn't provide any protection really. "Here, let me unlock the door. It looks like a simple electric lock so I can take care of it." Arisia said, coming forward with a small device that she took out of her pocket. It was about the size of her index finger and fit over it with a small scanner like thing on the tip of it. Placing her finger on the lock, i could hear some light beeping and then the lock clicked and the small light on it changed from a red holo-circle to a blue one.

"What is that?" I asked, even more suspicious than before. Why did she have something to break into locks with? She was a sixteen year old girl, not a spy. "Oh, my dad got it for me when I was ten," WHen she was ten? Who the hell gets a ten year old girl something that can break into electric locks? "He thought I could use it in an emergency if I ever got kidnapped or something. I guess he was a bit over protective," she said giggling. I guess that kind of made sense. Her dad had been a general. But a lock breaker? Slowly opening the door, I followed immediately after Peter, raising our weapons quickly to search the room. But before we had a chance to look around, we were greeted by an arrow embedding itself in the wall right next to my head. We both turned, pointed our weapons in the direction of a girl of about twenty maybe holding a bow while crouching on a bed with an arrow notched. She had long brown hair, most of it hanging down in a braid over her shoulder. She had a small open denim jacket on with a white t-shirt on underneath it with some simple designs on it and a pair of jeans.

"Take one step closer and this next arrow kills all of you," she said menacingly. And it looked like she meant it too. The arrow that had just imbedded itself in the wall was glowing a light red, pulsing with an intimidating light. The arrow that she had notched was a light blue and she was aiming at the wall on the other side of us, which meant the two of them were probably a set of trap arrows. Confirming my theory she proceeded to say "When this arrow hits the wall next to you, it will make an energy field that ail sever anything that goes through it and burns anyone near it, latching onto nearby metals, meaning that your own suits would kill you both. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if you try anything." I tried to raise my hands, making her tense and pull back on the bow even more.

"Relax", I said, putting my hands back down. "We were just looking for a place to stay for the night. We don't want to hurt anyone." Looking behind us, she said, "how many of you are there? Do you all have weapons and armor?" Quickly looking back at the three kids, I turned back and replied, "There are five of us, but only the two of us have armor." "What about weapons?" "I have a plasma cutter and he has a pulse rifle and pistol, the girl Arisia has five shards of metal that she uses as knives and a rivet gun, the guy has a plasma cutter and the other girl has a makeshift spear. We really only want somewhere to stay for the night, then we plan to leave in the morning." SHe pondered this for a minute and, seemingly deciding we were fine, lowered the bow, putting the arrow back in the quiver on her back. "Ok, you can stay the night. But only on one condition." Sharing a look with Peter, we looked back at her. "And what would that be?" he said, slightly nervous. "Let me travel with you," she said, hopping off the bed and walking towards us. "I can protect myself against whatever we run into and I could really help with fighting. I'm the best archer you'll ever meet, guaranteed." She smiled when she said that, slinging her bow over her shoulder.

Exchanging a quick glance with Peter, I just shrugged my shoulders at him. I didn't se any reason why she couldn't accompany us. She seemed like she could protect herself. Thinking it over, Peter nodded and then said, "Yeah, I guess you can come with us." Satisfied, she put down the quiver and said "Great! We leave in the morning then?" "Yeah I replied. Her manorisms had completely changed. Only a minute ago she was ready to kill us if we threatened us. She would definitely make a good addition to the team. "Oh yeah, my name's Laura. Laura Ryan. Nice to meet you." Peter nodded, attaching his pulse rifle to the magnetic clasp on his back and said, "I'm Captain Stanford. But you can just call me Peter. This is Isaac Clarke, Takashi, Rei, and Arisia," He said gesturing to us in turn as the kids filed into the room. Quickly exchanging greetings, Laura said, "Make yourselves at home. There isn't much room, but there's enough.

"I suggest we all rest now while we can and head out earlier in the morning. I don't want to stay here for longer than we need to." It was Peter. He probably wouldn't admit it but he looked exhausted. He had been dragging us around with him on his own all day. And even though I was definitely helping things go smoother, we had still traveled a good ten miles in only a few hours. While we had managed to avoid having to deal with any necromorphs in the city, we had had a few close calls.

"Ok," I agreed, "Laura, welcome to the team, but we should really settle down for the night. Where can we all sleep?" "Oh!" She looked surprised for a minute and scratched her head. "I, uh, hadn't thought about that. Hmm...," looking around she eventually said "Ah!" and smiling, she went to her closet and pulled out a few blankets and a some pillows and laid them out on the floor and on her small couch, covering a good portion of the floor. "It's not the most comfortable accommodations, but it should do." She gestured to the makeshift beds and smiled weakly. "They'll be fine, thank you," said Arisia, moving over to one of the sets of bedding and without saying anything else, gracefully slid under the blanket and proceeded to pass out.

"Well, goodnight everyone," Said Takashi as he went to his own set. Looking once more at Laura, I said thank you again. "Really it's okay!" She said heading to her bed. "Goodnight!" Well I guess that was our queue to get to bed. It was going to be a long day tomorrow. Waiting for Rei to fall asleep, I went over to Peter. "We should be able to get to the base tomorrow," he said, pressing a button on his arm, a small screen popped up. It appeared to be a map of the city. He pointed to a small building on the map. It had six small dots inside. "That's us," he said. "The red one is me and the other five are all of you. I was able to sync up my map with all of your RIGs." he pinched the screen and slid his finger over the map, moving it over towards the north. "This is the base." he said, zooming into a large base surrounded by a giant, barbed wire fence. It was probablly electric. "We can probably get there in about six hours on foot. Luckily it's a pretty straight forward route to get there. If we're lucky, we won't run into to much trouble. Either way we need to be prepared."

Nodding, I let my helmet retract into my suit. "Peter, what happened today? What caused this? Where did these things come from? Everything was fine this morning. No news, about anything out of the ordinary. What the hell happened?" He just sat down, taking the pulse rifle off of his back and placing it next to him. "I don't know. All that I know is that at about twelve today, me and my squad were sent to assist the school in anyway possible and help anyone that we could along the way. They didn't tell us what we were protecting them from, just that they needed to be protected. We didn't know what to make of it, but orders were order, and that's that. When we were about three miles away, we were attacked by those things in our humvee. John and Rumsford died almost instantly, but me and my other mates were able to escape, shooting at the creatures as we ran. We had to make it to the school no matter what. We still had to follow orders. By the time we got to the school, it was already over run. That was when we were ambushed by the stalkers. They came out of nowhere and quickly took out another member of my squad. A moment later, you four appeared and... You know the rest."

We both just sat there for a minute in silence. "Well, I'm going to bed." He just nodded.

(Laura)

I could hear the two older men talking. I don't know what it was about, but whatever it was, they were both pretty upset when they stopped. These people seemed to be able to handle themselves. They seemed to have made it here from the highschool based on the three kid's outfits. It was probably a highschool of the dead by now. They would be worth keeping around for a while, as long as they weren't going to be a liability. I guess I would find out in the morning. I would keep up this kinder personality for now, but for how long? Sooner or later they would discover my true nature. Hopefully later, and hopefully it wouldn't cause any... Problems.

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><p><strong>Well there's chapter ten. Took a bit longer to get out then I wanted but hey, I've been busy. Arisia, who is she really? What's with her "alternate personality"? And Laura, is she trust worthy? She seems nice enough, but will that change? Guess you'll just have to keep reading to find out!<strong>


	11. Tragedy

**Hey guys! So I've decided that there's actually going to be a plot instead of just the group running around trying to survive. I've also been working on a cover that I'm going to transfer over onto a computer so I can trace it in MS paint. Hopefully it turns out ok. I'm still accepting OC submissions, and I could really use some more. The format is in the reviews. Just look for the really long review, I think for chapter six. Sorry it's been a month. I had to study for midterms. fun, fun. Well here's the next chapter!**

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><p>(Isaac)<p>

It was a beautiful, sunny day. You could hear birds chirping, the sound of the wind blowing through the occasional tree, and The sky was clear. Unfortunately, everything went down hill from there. I awoke not to the sound of someone calling my name or shaking me awake, I woke up to the sound of a blood chilling roar. By the look of it, everyone else heard it too and were rising from their sleep, groggy. "What the fuck was that?" I said, voicing what was on everyone's minds. "I don't know," said Laura, gathering her things, slinging the quiver over her back. "But I really don't want to find out. Get your stuff, we need to leave. Now." We all just nodded and quickly picked up our assorted weaponry and headed for the door.

As I followed Laura out the door, we stopped dead in our tracks. to either side of us, there were three slashers. Luckily they hadn't noticed us yet. Peter right behind me noticed them and froze. "How should we do this," I said as quietly as possible. "I'll take the three on the right, you take the three on the left," said Peter. "But what if there's more around the corner?" It was Laura this time. "We can risk it," said Peter, tensing up. "Can we?" hissed Laura, clearly not thrilled by the idea. "What if the thing that roared hears us. We don't know how much of a threat that is. It couuld kill us!" She was talking fast, as two from the left side started to roam closer.

"Wait, both of you. Arisia, Rei," I gestured for them to come over. "Yeah?" said Rei. "Do you think you two could take out these six quietly?" "What!? They're only kids! you want them to take these things out!?" Laura was barely keeping her voice a whisper. She had an arrow notched in her bow. "We're sixteen. You're only like nineteen or twenty!" hissed Rei. "Shut it! Listen, if we don't take these things out now, we're screwed." I was loosing my patience. "Can you two take these things out?" Rei and Arisia looked at each other and nodded. "We can do it," said Arisia taking out two of the shards of metal.

Before they had a chance to move, Peter, getting annoyed, muttered "Fuck this," raised his pulse Rifle, and opened fire on the three to the left. "No!" I yelled, to late to stop him. "Shit!" I muttered under my breath and turned to aim at the three on the right, as they were already hobbling towards us. I Raised the plasma cutter with Takashi coming up beside me with his own and aimed at the nearest one, taking off it's head. The decapitated corpse kept on walking for a few steps, swiping at the air, and then fell to it's knees and died. Takashi took ot the second one, taking three shots to down it. An arrow went flying between our heads before we could aim at the last slasher and embedded itself feather deep into the creatures skull.

Turning to assist Peter, we found him curb stomping the last one's head off, it missing it's legs, it had been crawling on it's claws. Letting out a breath of air that I didn't realize I was holding in, I turned on Peter. "What the hell was that?" I said, practically yelling. "You people were taking to long to make a decision, so I made one for you." he said calmly. "What if there had been more nearby?" yelled Laura, filled with anger. "We would have killed them to." "Stop it," said Arisia feebly. "We're safe for now, so could we not fight?" She looked like she was about to cry. Laura just starred at her for a moment and then put her head down sighing. "Fine", she said. "But no more bs. We _decide _on something as a group before we act. Agreed?" Peter mulled it over for a minute before saying "Agreed."

"Good." I said, glad the issue had been resolved. "Now lets go."

...

Almost immediately after we got out of the building, not running into anymore trouble, we were greeted by a nothing loud roar, louder this time and much closer. The building behind us began to shake as what ever had roared began to move. Then it stopped. "That doesn't sound good." said Takashi, uttering the last words he would ever speak as the ground beneath his feet erupted as something much bigger then the other creatures burst out of the sewer. "Takashi!" me and Rei screemed at the same time, while simultaneously backing away from the creature. Next to the brute lay Takashi, a large pool of blood pooling from under his chest and head. Rei began crying while shaking her head and cupping her mouth.

"You son of a bitch!" I screamed at the creature, filled with rage. Screaming I opened fire on the creature as it turned to me. It charged at me, shrugging off the shots like they were pebbles. I barely was able to jump aside before it tackled me. getting back to my feet, I saw Peter, Laura with her pistol, and Arisia shooting at it's back, still with no avail. That's when I saw them. Four glowing yellow areas behind it, one behind each knee and one behind each massive shoulder. "The yellow spots!" I yelled. "Aim at the yellow!" "Got it!" They yelled, adjusting their aim. the creature turned around again, this time charging at Peter. He didn't react as fast as I did. I could hear the breath leave him as it got him right in the chest, hurling him a few feet. "Peter!" I yelled. "I'm fine!" came the reply. "It's no use!" said Arisia. "It won't stay still long enough!" She was right, everytime we got a clear shot it just turned around.

"I think I can change that." said Laura, reaching for her wrist. Out of her hand came a blue pulse of energy, making contact with the brute. The necromorph started moving in slow motion, covered in a blue field. "Don't just stand there, shoot it! Now!" With out a moments hesitation, me and Arisia went around the creature and shot at the joints in it's shoulders, firing round after round into them until finally, It's arms popped off. The blue field disapating, the creature roared and fell to the ground, unable to move but still alive. Reloading, I went up to it's head. Here's for killing my nephew." I growled, placing three shots in the creatures head, killing it for good.

Turning, I saw Rei crying over Takashi's body. Running over, she looked at me and just shook her head. How could this happen? It was just so fast. He was alive one second, and... the next... "Why?" choked out Rei. "Why you too?" Arisia was behind me, holding back tears, with Peter and Laura with their heads down on my left. "I know that you must be devastated," said Laura softlt. "But we need to get moving. That probably attracted more of those things." Rei didn't move. "Rei," I said quietly Putting my hand on her shoulder, "He would want you to live, and the only way to do that is to get moving. You understand that, right?" She just nodded, wiped the tears from her eyes, and picked up her spear. "Ok," she said weakly, "let's go."

As Peter began to lead us to the base, something cought my eye. "Wait a minute." Walking over to the brute's corpse, I saw something red and shining underneath it. "What is it?" asked Peter. By the looks of it, it was a ruby semi-conductor, a highly priced piece of metal. "It's a ruby semi-conductor." I replied. "We should hang on to it, it could come in handy." If anymore stores still worked, we could exchange it for ten thousand dollars and buy some weaponry and health packs. "Ok, take it and let's go," he said. Looking back one more time at Takashi's body, I felt my tongue catch in my throat, then I ran to catch up with the others.

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><p><strong>Ello again. So Takashi is no longer with us. Sorry if this upsets you, and honestly, i felt sad writing this chapter. I'm just having trouble writing for him. Again, sorry for this taking a freaking month to get out. But to you 337 people who viewed it this month, thanks a ton for sticking with it! Next chapter I start the actual plot so stay tuned! Feel free to leave requests for weaponry in the reviews. I'll consider anything that's not too outlandish, but only consider. <strong>


	12. The looming shadow

**Hey guys! I put a lot of thought into this chapter so I promise it's a good one. And a LONG one! Anyway, thanks to Musicgamer, my Beta, for looking over the next few chapters. I've been wrapped up in personal issues and DS3 so my writing has taken a back seat... again. Sorry for all the excuses! Anyway, enjoy the chapter!**

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><p><strong>(?)<strong>

It was beautiful, just... beautiful. The world was falling apart, the remnants of humanity scattering and being wiped out in the wave of beings known as necromorphs, the key to humanity's rise to a greater existence. Convergence was upon the human race whether they liked it or not. The markers scattered around the world were all released. It was only a matter of time before all of humanity was gone.

Out of the corner of my eyes I could see a man in a unitologist issued combat RIG specialy designed for this day running towards my office. Standing outside the door, he stood, waiting for me to grant him access. "You may enter," I said, loud enough for him to hear outside the glass door and wall. "What is it?" I said, not bothering to turn my head to address him. With his helmet retracted into his suit, I could clearly see his face. In my peripheral vision he appeared to be young, about twenty maybe. He seemed nervous, adjusting his weight evry second or two.

"Ma'am, it appears that the brute you sent to take care of that girl was killed by a small group of survivors." He was very interested in his feet apparently. "Who killed it?" I said between clenched teeth. What insulant human could have killed one of my pets? I was quite fond of my special necromorphs. There weren't to many at my disposal, most of them were nearly invincible. And this group of humans managed to defeat one? "Our sources say that it was a group of six, two adults, both men, and four that appeared to be either in highschool or college. The two men had full suits of armor, one an engineer it seems and one in riot armor."

"And the teenagers?" So there were six of them. And, it seemed, they were well equipped. "Well, it was three girls, including the girl with the bow and arrow that you had sent the brute for. One of the girls had long, green hair and a makeshift spear, the other girl had long black hair and a rivet gun. She also has what looks like a proficiency in throwing knives." A school girl with long black hair and a skill with knives... Could it be her? No, She disapeared years ago, it couldn't be. "What of the boy? Do I have to ask for every bit of information from you?!" I snapped at him, my patience thinning. "Yes, sorry!" he said quickly, starting to sweat. "The boy was killed by debri when the brute burst through the ground. The man in Engineer armor took the plasma cutter he had been holding and they left the body."

Smiling to myself, I let that improve my mood. _So my pet hadn't died without a fight. _"Is that all?" I said, still not looking at him. "Well, based on the man in the riot gear's armor, we can assume that they would be heading to the military base on the edge of the city. It's possible he was sent maybe to assist any civilians he could find." The fool, he and his presumably now dead squad should have just let convergence wash over them like the flood that was consuming the world. No matter, he would soon die, just like the rest and join the masses of necromorphs already roaming the planet. I noticed he was still standing there, waiting for me to speak."You've made your report, now leave." I ordered, waving him off. "Yes ma'am," he said hurriedly and rushed out the door. Rising from my chair, I walked over to the large windows in the back of my office, overlooking most of the city. All over the place I could see smoke rising from various buildings and roads, caused by the necromorphs running rampant throughout the city. Soon, sweet convergence would cover the entire city, then the country, and the other markers throughout the world would spread it to the entire planet, making the earth a paradise.

The only thing stopping the enlightened from attacking the large building which we had made our headquarters was the marker. The beautiful red marker that dwelled in the lower levels of the complex prevented the necromorphs from destroying the building and attacking those inside, making a barrier of sorts to keep them all away. But it was only a matter of time before we ourselves succumbed to convergence. We just needed to make sure that no one interfered with our grand plan before it was completed. I could only imagine the ecstatic feeling of my body being reformed into a greater being.

As for these survivors, they could prove to be a problem. It might be a good idea to take care of this problem personaly. And if they were going to the military base, I could think of only one way of introducing myself to them... Laughing darkly, I reached for the hilt on my belt. A small but deadly weapon if in the right hands. Pressing a small button on the sword hilt, the beam katana lit up, a long, deadly beam of black energy, capable of cutting through a human being with great ease. That troublesome girl with the bow would soon die by this blade, as well as her new found companions. But of course I would bring a little help with me. Going back to my desk, I pressed a small blue light that promptly changed to yellow, signaling that a com link had been acquired. "_Yes Ma'am?" _A grainy voice came through the speaker immediately. "I want the centipede ready to be shipped out within the hour." There was no response. "Will that be a problem?" I said, more menacingly. "N-no ma'am," she said. "Good, I'll need it _within the hour_. Don't mess up." "Yes, of course ma'am."

These persistent survivors would soon find out that resistance was uterly futile.

...

(Isaac)

The depressing remains of the city seemed to strangle them on their way to the base, with abandoned cars litering the streets, some with bodies in them that were beyond recognision. Luckily, there seemed to be less necromorphs in this part of the city then where they had come from. We could still hear screaming off in the distance, so the creatures must have been moving to engulf the entire city. Gunfire could also be heard in the distance but it would never last for long, the wielders of the weapons either dying or escaping the creatures. The latter seemed unlikely but based on their current situation, it wasn't impossible. It had only been two hours since the brute had... since they had killed the brute, but it felt like so much longer.

We were all jumpy, never letting our guard down, with Peter and Laura leading us with the two girls and I behind them. We were all armed with guns now, Rei using Takashi's plasma cutter. Every shadow seemed to move, causing us to raise our weapons more than we needed to, but you could never be too safe. Luckily, amo wasn't too much of an issue. We had managed to find another storeafter walking for about half an hour. With the money gathered between the five of us, we were able to get simple RIG armor for the girls as well as get plenty of amo for the plasma cutters, pistols, rivet gun, and pulse rifle. Luckily, my plasma cutter had a large capacity as it is and the previous owner of the other tool had it outfitted to hold twenty shots at a time.

As for weapon accuracy, Arisia was an amazing shot with the rivet gun, rarely missing a shot. Rei was learning fast herself and Laura favored her bow over her renewable amo was definitely a plus. "It's only about another six miles to the base from here, and according to my locator's map, the path should be clear of debri." Peter spoke up, breaking the silence that had fallen over them since they had found the store. "Good," It was Laura this time. "The faster we get there, the better. I want to be there before night fall, get some food and restock." Peter nodded, glancing at her quickly. "Once we get there, you can all stay put for a while. There may be some other civilians there but based on how my squad progressed through the city it isn't likely."

Rei just nodded. She hadn't said a word since the attack. "Well we'll see when we get there," I said. "Yeah," was the only reply I got from Peter, plunging us into silence again. Although it would never be truely silent. Sirens were still going off, the never ending screaming, and the sound of buildings collapsing and burning followed them forever. And little did we know, but noise wasn't the only thing following us...

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><p><strong>Well, there ya go. I know it really wasn't longer than any other chapters but I put a lot of effort into it. Any thoughts on this new character? She's must be involved with the marker, but who is she? And what could be following them? Well give me a week or two, hopefully not that long, and you'll find out! Anyway, REVIEW. I know how many of you read this, and it's starting to reach 1,000 a month, SO WHY ARE THERE ONLY 29 REVIEWS. Ah, anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter!<strong>


	13. The young swordswoman

**Hey guys, and wow, I just looked at the traffic graph for this month and already there are ****_600_**** views! That's huge for me! Great to know so many of you are interested in the story! Oh and if you haven't gotten or seen someone play DS3 yet, GO PLAY IT. Freakin amazing. Anyway, here ya go!**

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><p>(Isaac)<p>

They were only a mile away from the military base and hopefully, safety, but they had run into a bit of a problem. There was only one way to get through the city without backtracking for a few hours dew to demolished buildings and debri blocking the way. Unfortunately, the one road they were looking down at at the moment was crawling with necromorphs. And right in the middle of it, a group of teenagers, all of them were about fifteen or sixteen, and they were doing what they could to fight off the stream of necromorphs attacking them. The street they were on curved down into a pretty steep hill, with buildings cutting off any escape on both sides. Behind them them seemed to be where the necromorphs were coming from as well as through the only two alleys inbetween buildings that weren't covered by crap from the destruction.

The creatures had them cornered behind an overturned car. There looked to be three of them, two boys and a girl. The boys between them had a javelin gun, most likely scavenged from a hardware store and a plasma cutter. The girl was cowering behind them, clearly terrified. We were positioned behind some abandoned cars at the top of the hill, over looking them. "We need to help them," I said, hoping the other would agree. We needed to help anyone we found, and by the looks of things, if we didn't help, those three would end up like the creatures trying to kill them. Laura nodded her agreement. "It looks like there are mostly slashers, I count fourteen. Then there are five of those things holding two axes. They look new." "Oh great," said Peter, "There are different types of the bastards besides the four we've already run into?"

It seemed like the damn things were evolving, and fast. These new necromorphs looked like security officers, but their helmets were cracked open to reveal huge clowing eyes. They were wielding two axes, drenched in blood no doubt from other humans. Arisia spoke up, "We could move closer, to that car over there," she gestured to a car on it's side about three metres in front of us, "And attack from a distance." By the time they notice that their prey has trippled, a few of them will be dead and they'll have two groups to focus on." That should work. There were already a few slashers dead, killed by the teenagers, but most of their shots were missing their targets. "We don't need to waist amo for these kids." said Peter, clearly not pleased with the prospect of saving this new group.

"What are you saying?" I said. "We can't just leave them to die!" "Sure we can," he countered, "We need to think of our own survival, not theirs." "We aren't leaving them and that's final!" hissed Laura, determined not to leave them behind. "And who made you boss?" Peter growled, the two of them glaring at each other. Suddenly, they heard a scream coming from the group below. They all looked up to see the boy with the plasma cutter being cut into by a slasher that had gotten too close. "That's it, we help them!" I said, running forward to the car without looking to see if anyone was following.

Raising my plasma cutter, I flipped the muzzle sideways and began firing, taking the legs off of the nearest slasher, then placing a second round in it's head, killing it. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the others crouching down next to me. "We help them Clarke," said Peter, "but no more heroics after this." Leaning over the car, he opened fire on the creatures as well, the others following his lead. The necromorphs were now well aware of their new adversaries, the five soldiers with axes turning to run at us. "Remember, aim for their head and cut off their limbs!"I yelled above the gun fire. Laura responded by shooting an arrow into the middle of the five. It stuck to one of their heads and exploded a second later.

Their torsos were completely blown off, nothing left of them but charred bits of flesh. Laura let out a chear of joy, notching another arrow. Her victory cry was early, as the five sets of legs suddenly exploded three tentacle claws out of their waist, slashing at the air while advancing on us. "Shit! These things don't know when to quit!" I said, quickly taking out one of the splitters. It's three claws severed, it fell to the ground, now unmoving. Peter made quick work of two of the others while Arisia took out the forth. The last one was silenced by a beam of energy that came out of nowehere, similar to a line gun, slicing all three limbs off. Out of one of the side alleys, a girl with a glowing blue sword ran towards the remaining necromorphs, gracefully slicing through the necromorphs with her sword. The last two slicers came running at her, slicing at the air with their claws. She turned on them, and with a yell, sliced the air, a beam of energy like the one before coming from her blade, flying towards the necromorphs, severing their legs. She ran towards them and cut off their heads with one quick slice.

"Who the hell is she?" said Rei, uttering the first words from her mouth in hours. "I don't know," I said. "But I definitely want her on our side. Come on, lets go." I said, gesturing for everyone to follow me. "Hey there!" yelled the girl, waving her sword in the air at us. She seemed happy. Getting closer to her, I could see that she was only about fourteen, with bright red hair and bright brown eyes. She had a huge grin on her face, like someone had just told her she had won the lottery. "Hey," I said, the rest of the group exchanging greetings as well. "Who are you?" I asked, curious as to how this girl had become so skillful with a sword like the one she had and how she had acquired it. "My name is Ashley Adams," she said with a short bow. "It's a pleasure to meet you all." She was a bit too happy considering the situation of the city, but she did just find a group of survivors, so I guess she was glad to not be alone anymore.

I could see the two surviving teenagers coming out from behind the car, cautiously walking up to us. "T-thank you for helping us." said the boy, his hands clenched around his plasma cutter. The girl was clutching onto his arm, hiding behind him like a little kid. "Help? Kid, we saved your asses." said Peter. "Peter," I said, giving him a look as I let my helmet retract into my armor. "What, it's true." he said, putting his hands up defensively. Shaking my head, I looked back at the boy. "What's your name, kid?" I asked "My name is-" He was cut off as his head exploded, splattering me and Laura with blood. The girl's chest exploded with blood at the same time as three thick, needle like projectiles shot through the air, the third hitting the street. Jumping back in shock, I looked up at where the projectiles had come from. A lone lurker was crwling down the side of one of the buildings, emerging from a shattered window. "Shit! Take it out!" I yelled raising my plasma cutter. Simultainiously, we all fired at the lurker, severing it's tentacle limbs. It fell to the ground, screeching as it splattered against the side walk.

"Dammit, they were just kids!" said Peter. "There's nothing we can do about it now," said Arisia solemly. "We need to keep moving. Ashley, you can come with us if you want." Nice to know we had all agreed on that. But it made sense to bring her. She was just a kid but she _had_ taken out eight necromorphs in a matter of seconds. We could use her. "*sigh* alright, let's go. I don't want to stck around here and wait for anymore of those things to show up." Peter was right. It was already getting late. It had to be at least fur by now and with a mile still ahead of them, they needed to keep moving. Taking one last look at the bodies of the three teeenagers that they had 'rescued', The group made their way down the street, making their way to the military base, Completely unaware of what awaited them.

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><p><strong>Well there you have it. I had time so I was able to get this chapter out faster. Hope you liked it! As always, read and review! The more reviews I get, the more inclined I'll be to write the next chapter faster!<strong>


	14. Wary Hope

**Hey guys, again, thanks for the massive amounts of views. I never thought my story would ever get this popular! I guess it kind of helps that it's the only one in its category... Anyway, enjoy chapter 14!**

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><p>(Isaac)<p>

We had walked the final mile to the base, amazingly unopposed. The charred remains of buildings and cars (as well as the occasional body) didn't make the trip any better. It served to remind us that no matter how much we wished this was a dream, no matter how much we wanted this not to be real, that it was oh so very real. Every minute that we survived was a gift, proving that the time that we had spent idle, doing nothing at home, wasting hours of our lives was something that we had taken for granted until road we went down, every lurking shadow cast by the corpse of a city that once thrived could hold the end of our lives.

With that sobering thought, I returned to the task at hand. The base itself was barely visible, most of it hidden inside a small mountain right outside the city. There was a tunnel leading into the mountain guarded by a tall chain link fence, usually operated by a nearby guard stand that controlled the mechanism to open the gates. Beyond that, none of the base was visible, most of it hidden inside the mountain or underground. About halfway up the mountain, there was a concrete wall, curved to fit the mountain with a huge window in the middle, probably a control center of some kind.

Normally, the sight of the base would have been very reassuring, given our circumstances. However, Peter had stopped us about fifty metres away from the gates, hidden in the trees surrounding the base of the mountain.

"Something isn't right," said Peter uncertainly, clutching his pulse rifle, the small blue holoscreen hovering above the sight of the weapon informing him that he was fully loaded with 150 pulse rounds. "That guard stand should be manned by a private, and the gates should have two men standing guard in front of it." Now that he mentioned it, it did seem odd that a military base wasn't guarded. And I doubted that the men were on break...

"Is it possible that the guys who were supposed to guard the base left their posts to check on their families?" asked Rei. She had a point; my first thought would be to find my family if situations like this started happening.

"Well, some of the bastards might have left when we needed them, but there were over one thousand men and women stationed here. Even if half of them were to leave, they would still have someone guarding the gates." Dammit, he was right. Something was definitely off here.

"I've got a bad feeling about this…" I said warily.

"Is there any other way into the base?" asked Laura. "Like a back door of sorts?"

Peter thought about it for a moment before finally saying, "There is a hatch not too far from the base of the mountain over there," he said, gesturing to the area left of the gate. "If we could get inside from there, we could tell what's going on.

"Then what are we waiting for?" said Rei. "Let's go." Quietly following Peter, I looked up quickly at the window in the side of the mountain. Squinting, I thought I could see a shadowed figure. Blinking to make sure there wasn't anything in my eyes, I looked again, but the shadow was gone.

"Clarke, what the hell are you doing? Get your ass moving!" Peter called back to me, several feet away.

"I'm coming!" I called back, looking quickly at the window again. Whatever I had seen, it was gone.

...

(?)

It looked like the foolish survivors had managed to make it here after all. Despite their annoying perseverance, I had to commend them on their ability to survive. Most beings would have given up by now, having lost a comrade and watched three other people die right before their eyes.

Yes, my eyes throughout the city could see everything. There was little that could be hidden from me within the confines of this city. And that girl that was with them... if she was who I thought she was…well, it would definitely make for an interesting confrontation.

Convergence had already engulfed almost every living being on the planet, leaving various groups of survivors across the globe fighting for their lives in what little time they had left. Their efforts were futile, of course. There were fifty Markers spread throughout the globe. Even if they wanted to stop the Necromorphs, they wouldn't know how to destroy the Markers. And even if they did, they would have trouble destroying just one, let alone fifty. They wouldn't even be able to find them without knowledge of our organization's inner workings. Convergence was inevitable, but there would still be some of us humans – such as myself – inhabiting the world, living among the risen for the next few years, making sure there was no chance of any of this being reversed.

At this point, however, I didn't even care about Convergence. I hadn't realized how satisfying it could be to watch humans suffer as they were brutally massacred by the Necromorphs, the high that I could get from hearing the screams of people trying (and failing) to flee in terror as their friends, family, and neighbors were killed and brought back to join in on the carnage. The smell of the blood of the marines that had been butchered by my pet, blanketing the halls of the Mount Isabella military base, was like an aphrodisiac, flooding me with an orgasmic feeling as I drowned in the coppery smell of the crimson blood, my footsteps leaving bloody stains on the carpeted floors of the office I stood in.

The general – I believe his name had been Stevenson – was now hung from the wall, impaled through the chest and head by spears from my soldiers' lance guns. He was still oozing blood, staining the white on the Japanese flag that hung from the wall behind him. Four of his men lay under him, their heads wrapped in bandages, all dead, with a single hole in their forehead, preparing their bodies for convergence.

Would what I was doing be considered evil? I had helped put billions of people to death, leaving only the strongest and most resourceful alive by chance. It was all in the name of Convergence, but the entire world didn't consist of Unitologists. Most of the people killed by the Necromorphs probably didn't even want Convergence, but they had it forced upon them anyway. For killing them for a good cause but without discretion…was I evil?

Thinking about it, I can only think of one answer: yes. And this knowledge thrilled me. It was an evil done in the name of Unitology. That made it just, even if it was evil. I didn't care if it was just or not though. I only cared that others suffered for my evil deeds. People such as these fools that dared to try and survive despite the odds, ignoring the fact that one wrong move would mean death.

But I wouldn't let them die so easily. No, before they died, they would suffer. It seemed like this would be a good time to play a little game with our guests, show them what it truly meant to suffer…and if they survived, then I would kill them myself…slowly, painfully, and in the most cruel way that I can think of. And once that is done, then, I think, I can be truly pleased with myself. To think, I had been such an innocent girl when I was younger, my father teaching me how to fight, how to survive.

_If only you could see me now, daddy..._

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><p><strong>Well there you go. It was a bit shorter than usual, but I definitely think that this is the best written chapter so far. I hope you enjoyed it! Special thanks again to MusicGamer, my beta! Well, review for Pete's sake! Thanks for your support again!<strong>

**-Rafen**


	15. A False Haven

**Hey guys, things should be getting interesting soon! Really hope you enjoy this next chapter. **

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><p>(Isaac)<p>

The back entrance to the base wasn't much to look at. Right next to the mountain, there was a round metal door in the ground with a wheel to open it on top. It was surrounded by tall grass and weeds, slightly camouflaging it. "Well here we are," said Peter, gesturing to the door, "This will take us down to the negative eighteenth level of the base, underground obviously. It lets out right next to the armory, so we should be able to stock up on ammo and weapons."

"Do we have a plan for what to do once we get in there?" asked Ashley, clutching the hilt of her currently inactive beam katana.

"Well, our first objective after stocking up should be to get the command center on the ninth floor. The one overlooking the entrance. If we run into trouble, then we might have to fight our way out."

That didn't sound like the greatest plan in the world. "Trouble?" asked Laura, "What do you mean by 'trouble'?"

I knew exactly what he meant. "If the base has been compromised," I said, "It's very possible that it's overrun with necromorphs."

Everyone was silent for a moment. "Is it really worth the risk then?" asked Arisia, "If the base is over run, then we would be forced to fight through eighteen floors of those things and then still have to make it to the entrance." She had a point. If the base wasn't secure, then it didn't make sense to risk their safety for a small chance that they would be safe here.

"Well, if we can get to the control center, there is a list of emergency safe houses that should be secure even in a time like this. Even if the base isn't safe, it would be a good idea to get the locations of all the safe houses and try to make our way towards one."

Hmm...we did need somewhere safe to go. "I say we take the risk," I suggested. We had survived this long, we could make it through this. "Who's with me?"

Ashley was the first to speak up. "I want to go in. It would be fun to take out some more of these things. I need to see some more action!" This girl was only about fourteen. Why was she so ready to throw herself into battle? That would be a question I would have to ask later.

"Ok, anyone else?" Laura was the next to speak up, "Ugh, fine. We do need to find somewhere safe, and if this is the best way to do that, I guess I'm in."

"Fine, I'm in too," said Arisia reluctantly. She had completely thrown off her innocent exterior and was acting more like a warrior every minute.

"This is ridiculously dangerous," she continued, "But like Laura said, we do need somewhere safe to go."

"I guess I'm in, too," said Rei, "I don't want to be the only one out here." Good, that was everyone.

"Clarke, want to do the honors?" asked Peter, gesturing at the door.

"Sure," I replied, reaching for the wheel. It took a bit of force to turn it, but the rusty wheel turned and turned until I could hear a metallic *_click*_ and the door popped open.

"I'm first!" cried Ashley, and without waiting for a reply, she jumped in the hole, grabbed the ladder, and slid down, reaching the bottom in seconds.

"You coming or what?" she yelled up at us.

"I'll go next," said Arisia, following Ashley's example and reaching the bottom in the same speed. Without saying a word, Laura followed suit.

"I feel really old right now," I said, knowing I'd have to go down the eighteen stories the old fashioned way.

"You and me both," muttered Peter, before starting the climb down, "Rei, you go next. I'll go last and close the hatch."

She nodded. "Ok," she responded.

Those three girls...they obviously weren't inexperienced. Just how did they get to be as...proficient in their skills as they were? Arisia had her planning skills as well as her ability with knives. She hadn't missed a target yet. The same went for Laura. Every time she let an arrow fly, it hit its target. As for Ashley, she had that beam katana. Those weren't easy to get your hands on. Were they hiding something or was I just paranoid? As I followed Rei down into the hole and closed the hatch behind me, I told myself that it wasn't important at the moment. I would have to talk to all of them once I got the chance.

It took a few minutes, but the three of us finally got to the bottom of the lever. In front of us was a ovular door, just big enough for someone to go through one at a time, and it was a few inches off the ground. "Ok," said Peter, "We should be right next to the armory. Once we get stocked up, we head up to the ninth floor and to the command center. We'll figure out the rest once we get there."

"Sounds good to me," I said. Slowly opening the door, I stuck my head out, listening for anything out of place.

"Anything?" asked Laura.

"No." And that's what worried me. There was no noise, no alarms, no sound of anyone walking around. Complete silence.

"Looks clear," I told the others, "Let's go." Peter moved past me, walking over to a door a little down the hall from us.

"Here, this is the armory. Take what you need, but only what you can carry."

The armory was amazing. The walls were lined with pulse rifles and a smaller gun I didn't recognize as well as hand grenades and mines. There was even a plasma cutter and line gun with plenty of ammo. Don't know why they had it, but it was nice. "Ashley, take this," I said to her, tossing her the new plasma cutter and a few clips that she proceeded to shove into her pockets.

"Thanks," she responded, "This'll cut them up nice!" She had a big grin on her face as she said this. I took the line gun for myself, using a magna clamp on my back to hold it in place. Out of the corner of my I eye, I saw what I was really looking for: a military suit, covered in white plating with a dog like helmet. Walking over to the case it was held in, I slipped out of my own armor and put on the new one.

"Oh, that's nice," complimented Peter, impressed.

"It'll do," I replied, smiling to myself. Holstering the line gun onto my back, I transferred all my ammo over to the new suit and took a few grenades and mines as well. Never knew what would come in handy.

Arisia had grabbed an extra pistol and some ammo, Ashley had taken a belt of grenades, and Laura had restocked on arrows, her quiver filled to the brim. Peter had already loaded up on ammo for his pulse rifle and a pistol he had grabbed and some grenades. Rei didn't really seem to know what to do. She was just looking at all the weaponry, not really knowing what to do with herself. Taking a pistol and some ammo, I went up to her. "Here," I said to her, handing her what I had taken, "Just in case you run out of ammo for the plasma cutter." She took it slowly, putting away the ammo a the pistol.

"Thank you," she thanked me, "My dad was a cop. He showed me a bit about how to use a pistol." I nodded and went over to Peter, who was waiting outside the door keeping watch.

"Do you really think we have a chance at getting somewhere safe?" I asked him.

He was silent for a minute before finally replying, "Honestly, I don't know, Clarke. They don't train you for shit like this at the academy. Those kids in there-" he gestured at the girls, "-they all seem to know what they're doing. I don't know where or how they got their training, but if it helps us survive, I don't give a damn." That wasn't exactly a reassuring answer, but I'd take it.

"Yeah, I definitely feel safer knowing they aren't just something we need to protect."

Just then, Arisia came up to the door, stocked with gear. She had taken a few throwing knives by the looks of it. "We're ready," she announced.

"Good. There should be an elevator near by that we can take up to the ground floor. After that, we have to walk."

Peter pointed down the hallway to the left. "That way," he said, and started walking.

After a short walk, we came upon an elevator, the glowing holo-image of an elevator glowing a bright cyan. Pressing his hand up to it, the text changed to 'STAND BY' and we could hear the elevator coming down the shaft. When it finally reached us, the doors slowly opened, revealing a body that had obviously been shot at by a lurker. Three bony pegs had pinned him to the wall, splattering blood everywhere.

"Jesus!" Peter gasped, looking away. The others' reactions were similar.

"Well, we need to go up," I told them, walking up to the body. I began pulling the pegs out of his body, tossing them out of the elevator.

"Peter, help me out," I added a second later, picking up the man's legs.

"Yeah," he replied, slowly picking him up under the shoulders. We propped him up against the wall and all filed in, trying to ignore the blood coating everything. The elevator started to move, whirring slightly as it ascended. Reaching the ground floor, the orange light turned back to blue and the door opened.

"Only nine floors to go," commented Rei, grasping her plasma cutter like there was no tomorrow.

And for us, there might not be.

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><p><strong>Well there you have it. Hope you liked the chapter! Sorry for another chapter with no action. I promise there will be a lot next chapter! Well ciao till next time!<strong>


	16. The Centipede

**Hey guys, I promise there's action in this chapter! No long A/Ns anymore so just enjoy the chapter!**

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><p>(Arisia)<p>

Almost instantly after they stepped out of the elevator into the stone grey hallway, they were greeted by the sound of an intercom switching on. "Greetings survivors," came the voice of a young female through the intercom.

"What the hell?" cried Peter and Isaac, just as confused as the rest of us.

"I've been expecting you. You have impressed me with your impressive and some what... _annoying _perseverance. That fact that you survived this long is impressive in of itself."

"Who are you?!" Laura yelled at the speaker, receiving quiet laughter in response.

"Laura Ryan... you should know exactly who I am, considering how long we've known each other." The voice had a dark edge to it, but seemed to be mocking Laura. How did Laura know this woman? "Agh, well, even if you don't remember me, I still intend to kill you all." Laura was silent for a moment, seemingly thinking about how she knew her. Then, in a moment of realization, her head shot up.

"You!" she growled, breathing heavy, "But, how? I killed you! You're dead!"

"Ah, ah, ah, Laura sweetie, you didn't kill me. It takes a lot more then a simple arrow to kill me. But now it's my turn to do the killing. You see, only an hour or two ago, my troops and necromorphs took the base, killing everyone inside and leaving their bodies to the infectors that are still flying around in here, transforming any unchanged flesh into a higher being then ourselves! Isn't it beautiful?" This woman, how could she have controlled the necromorphs to attack here? They were just animals now, how did she get control of them?

Laura shook with anger, practically growling at the speaker. "You did this?!" demanded Peter, yelling as well, "Why?! What did you have to gain?" Her only response was laughter.

"It doesn't matter," she said, still laughing, "All that matters to me is that you all suffer and die. Oh, and don't think you can just run away! The entrance is locked up tight. No explosive can break through the bulkhead guarding it either. The only way you are ever leaving here is by getting the key card to the door! So how about we play a little game, eh?" This wasn't good. The others could handle themselves, but what if they got hurt? I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt! These people may not be that close to me yet, but I would be devastated if they were to be killed! As for this woman, her voice... it sounded familiar. Now if only I could think of from where...

"How are we supposed to find the key card?" asked Isaac.

"Well isn't it obvious?" she said, laughing again, "You have to take it from the corpse of the general. He and I are waiting up here for you. Well, at least what's left of him!" Laughing again, the intercom shut off, leaving us in an eerie silence.

"What the hell is this?" snapped Peter. He stormed over to Laura. "Who the kriffing hell was that and how did she know you were with us? I want answers! Now!" Laura just stood there, still shaking with rage.

"Peter, back off!" Isaac yelled, "If she has a story to tell, then she'll tell it." Peter backed off, grumbling something inaudible under his breath and let Laura speak. When she spoke, her voice was shaking slightly.

She took a deep breath and began to speak. "My family is a family of assassins. We start getting training once we turn five. A little over a year ago, I turned eighteen. When we turn eighteen, we receive our first job. Someone sent us a letter with nothing but a picture and some money. On the outside of the letter was written, 'show no mercy'. My father gave the job to me, and I've been traveling here for over a year. About a month ago, I finally found an opportunity to kill her. All it took was a single arrow to the neck. She fell, and she died. There was no way she could have survived."

She was an assassin? Well, that did explain why she was so talented with using a bow. I guess she didn't trust us enough to tell us, or maybe she just didn't feel it was necessary.

"You're an assassin?! That would have been nice to know earlier!" yelled Peter, clearly annoyed, "Anything else you're hiding from us?"

"My personal life is none of your business!" she snapped at him, "And either way, it doesn't matter. We need to survive. So why should it matter if I'm an assassin?"

"She has a good point," chimed in Rei, "Either way, we need to work together, not fight if we want to survive this! So can you just get along?" She sounded tired, the poor thing.

Peter just replied, "Hmph, only because we need to."

Sighing, Rei just said, "Ok."

"Do you hear that?" said Isaac, turning his head slightly. All of a sudden, his eyes flew open and he quickly put his helmet back on, "Shit, we have company!" As if on cue, ten people dressed in black suits of armor with Unitology symbols scribbled on them came running from around the corner.

"There they are!" one of them called out, pointing at us, "Kill them!"

"Shit, run!" yelled Peter, pressing a blue holo-button on his arm. A white field of energy, about four feet tall from top to bottom flickered into existence just as gun fire peppered the floor and walls near us.

"Get behind me!" ordered Peter, "When we get to the end of the next hallway, we can take them out from behind some cover!" Following his order without hesitation, we ran, pulse rounds hitting the ground at our feet. Rounding the corner, we could see what Peter meant. The walls were held up by curved metal bars about two feet wide. We ducked behind them, Peter pressing himself up against the wall on one side with Isaac on the other.

"Well isn't this a nice situation we've gotten ourselves into here!" yelled Isaac above the gunfire, "Who are these people anyway?"

"Shoot first, check later!" cried Peter, reaching around the metal beam to shoot his pistol at the Unitologists taking position at the other end of the hall. By the looks of it he was able to get one.

"Sounds good to me!" he replied, shooting the plasma cutter at the enemy.

"Hey, leave some for the rest of us!" said Ashley, taking up position next to Isaac. I followed suit, took up a position with my own pistol and took aim, landing a head shot with the first round on a man foolish enough to stick his head out from behind cover.

All of a sudden, Laura yelled and fell back, falling behind the wall. "Laura!" Rei yelled, rushing over to her side and kneeling down next to her.

"Rei, get her up against the wall!" I yelled. If she was hurt, I would have to deal with that afterwards.

"She got shot in the arm!" Rei yelled while pulling her over.

"Agh, my arm!" moaned Laura, putting pressure on her arm.

"Isaac, Peter, Ashley, we can't drag this out! We need to end this quickly! Laura's hurt!" I said, taking out another one, shooting his leg and then his head as he fell.

"No problem!" yelled Ashley, a huge grin forming on her lips. She took up her blade katana hilt, activating it, and ran from cover, straight towards the Unitologists.

"Ashley, get back here!" Isaac yelled, but she wasn't listening. Slamming into the first one she saw, she knocked him to the ground, followed by a single slash with her beam katana, silencing the man for good. The other seven she took out with a graceful ease, mercilessly cutting them down without giving them even a split second to react. Soon, all that was left were the bodies, all with cuts burned into them with the beam katana.

"Holy shit..." whispered Peter under his breath. Ashley turned back towards us and gave a huge smile and a thumbs up.

"Problem taken care of!" she said in an overly cheery voice. This girl... could she have been apart of...that? Based on her skill with a beam katana, she might have been, since she's only fourteen. I couldn't think about something that wasn't important at a time like this. I rushed over to Laura, who was propped up against the wall, her hand and arm covered in blood. I turned to Peter.

"Is there a med room anywhere near here?" I asked him. Laura was losing a lot of blood, and if I couldn't bandage it soon, it would be really bad.

"Yeah, follow me," he replied, "Clarke, carry her!" Isaac instantly picked her up and ran after Peter. We all did. Turn after turn after turn we took until finally we came upon a door with a large red cross on it. Slamming my hand on the cyan door control, I rushed inside, quickly checking to make sure it was clear, and found the bandages and ointment I was going to need.

"Put her on the table!" I commanded, rushing to get what else I needed, "She's in a state of shock. She'll snap out of it soon, but I need to work now!" Isaac quickly put her down on the table, as gently as he could. Using a laser scalpel, I carefully cut off her armor covering her left arm with a laser scalpel, careful not to cut the skin, then I covered the wound with a cotton pad. It was bleeding a lot more then it should have, which meant it might have hit a major artery. Covering the wound with another pad, I applied as much pressure as I could, then wrapped the pad and her arm with gauze, stopping the bleeding. Unfortunately, the shot had hit her in the middle of her upper arm, so she might have some internal bleeding, but without the right equipment, I couldn't tell.

"How is she?" asked Rei, concern on her face. They had all removed their helmets and were standing around the table.

"She'll be fine," I said, easing the tension. "She should snap out of her shock any moment actually. As for her arm... well she won't be able to use her left arm for anything really. It wouldn't take much to open up the wound again. She'll have to stick with her pistol from now on, at least for a week."

"Well that's a relief," said Isaac. You could feel the tension in the room drop almost instantly. It felt good to save her. In a minute or so she would be out of her shock and then we could get moving again. Her eyes flickered open and she tried to get up, using her left arm as a support and fell back against the table.

"What the hell happened?" she demanded. I pulled her up so she could sit and quickly explained what had happened in the last few minutes.

"I guess I'm stuck with just my pistol for a while then, huh?" she asked. I just nodded and handed her bow and quiver back.

"Oh well," she said, "You make due with what you can, I guess." She obviously wasn't thrilled, but luckily she wasn't complaining.

After a few minutes of her getting used to her lack of ability in her arm, we headed out again. Peter had told us to go through the third floor gym and then it was just a simple walk up some stairs and down a few hallways. Then we would be at the ninth floor. As we walked down the dull grey walls, we could here things moving around in the walls.

"What was that?" I asked gingerly. But I already knew the answer.

"Those things must be in the ventilation system, that's why we aren't seeing any of the," said Isaac, raising his plasma cutter. We all followed suit. "Keep your eyes open."

"Thanks for the tip Clarke," said Peter, taking out his pulse rifle.

Suddenly, one of the vents right in front of us exploded open, a single Slasher bursting out from it, blocking our path. Behind it, two more vents burst open, revealing three Slashers in total. "Take them out!" yelled Isaac, opening fire on the creatures. These ones were stronger then the others it seemed, more elite maybe. They ran at us, swinging their arms. We were just able to stop them before they got to us, shooting off their arms and legs, then their heads.

"Everyone okay?" said Isaac, looking us over, "Good, let's go."

All the way to the third floor, we nervously glanced at all the ventilation shafts, having our guns raised the entire time. When we got to the third floor, we could see two Unitologists in the same armor as the ones before walking down the hall, their backs turned to us.

"I can take care of this," said Ashley, activating her blue beam katana, she leapt out into the hall, and with a yell, sliced the air, causing a long beam of energy to go flying at the two soldiers. They turned just before the beam cut them both in half like a shot from a line gun. They didn't even have a chance to scream.

"Nice work," complimented Isaac, following after Peter who was already walking down the hall. He lead us through a large door into what appeared to be gym. On the other side of the gym were two doors, the only two ways out of the room. As we made our way across the room, we heard an ear splitting screech followed by one of the ventilation shafts exploding open as the most terrifying thing she had ever seen came from it. A human centipede made entirely of Slashers with two stalker torsos making a tail, skittered across the room towards us, at least ten feet long. Before we could react, it lashed its tail out, slamming Laura and Peter in the chest, crashing through the left door. The impact made some rubble fall, blocking off the door. The centipede then moved to block the other door, leaving no escape.

"What the hell is that?!" yelled Ashley, taking out her beam katana and plasma cutter, one in each hand. The beast was made up of at least fifteen of the necromorphs, all of them still 'alive'.

"We don't have a choice, shoot it down!" shouted Isaac, opening fire, lighting the creature up with beams of energy. Rei, Ashley and I followed his lead, putting an entire clip into the thing, barely doing any damage. The rounds were hitting but they weren't doing much. The centipede screeched and launched itself at me. I was just able to duck to the side before it slammed into me. I quickly reloaded and shot at it's underside as it went by, killing one of the necromorphs attached to it. It slumped down, it's own blades now limp.

"Shoot underneath it! Kill the ones on the bottom! That's where it's weakest!" I yelled at the others. They responded by focusing their fire on the base of the creature. The sudden re-focusing of fire onto it's underside caused the creature to screech in pain, three of its extra bodies now slumped over and dead. Wounded, it slammed through another vent and disappeared.

"Something tells me that's not the last that we're going to be seeing of that thing," said Rei, looking at the vent warily.

"Isaac!" Peter was yelling from behind the rubble, "I'm sending your RIG the coordinates for where to meet up! We won't be able to until the seventh floor. Good luck!"

We could hear the two of them running from the debris. "Of course it's those two that get stuck alone," muttered Isaac, "Well, let's get going. We don't want to waste any time." He ran for the door as we followed, heading towards our salvation.

Or at least we hoped we were.

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><p><strong>Well there ya go. Longest chapter so far! I hope you enjoyed it! Remember, leave a review!<strong>


	17. Abandoned

**Hey guys, sorry, I had a massive writers block for the past few weeks, especially due to the fact that the group is split in two. Not to mention I've been swamped with work lately... Damn school.**

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><p>(Peter)<p>

We had only gotten down two hallways before she collapsed, falling flat on her face. It looked like when the centipede had knocked us through the door, she had hit her head on something. There was a decent sized crack on the back of her helmet and by the looks of it, she was bleeding. Kneeling down next to her, I roughly shook her arm, trying to wake her up. There was no way I was going to carry around an unconscious girl when the base was swarming with those things.

"Hey, get the hell up!" I shouted, shaking her even more roughly. No matter what I did, she didn't move. Checking her pulse, I confirmed she was definitely still alive, just out cold. _Damn it, of all the people to get stuck with, it had to be this bitch. And now she's unconscious. That's just Kriffing great. _There was no way I was going to drag her around with me. If she ever woke up, she would have to fend for herself. Giving up on trying to wake her, I got up and started walking in the direction of the stairs. The seventh floor cafeteria was the only place that we could all meet up. If the others survived, it would be easy to get up the last two floors and take out the bitch who put us in this screwed up game.

I had no doubt the others would survive. They had that Arisia kid and Ashley. I don't know how but those kids were amazingly well trained with a beam katana. Plus, Clarke had his shit together, so he could get them to where they needed to go. It was better this way now that he was alone, at least for this short while. No company meant no liability, which suited him just fine. He still had a ways to go ahead of him and he could here those bastards running through the vents. It was going to be another long day...

...

_(30 minutes later)_

(Laura)

I woke up against the cold hard floor, forgetting where I was for a minute. Then I looked around, seeing the destroyed door covered in rubble, the blood splattered walls, and I remembered. We were going through the gym when that creature attacked. Peter and I were knocked through the door... Peter! I didn't see him anywhere. The bastard must have abandoned me! That son of a bitch would have to deal with me when I saw him next.

Getting up too fast, I felt a spike of pain shoot through my skull, causing me to collapse to the floor. Putting my hand to my head, I could feel what could only have been dried blood. I must have hit my head, and that must have been why I was knocked out. _Nice of you to help me out, Peter..._

Getting up again, slower this time, I took out my pistol, the only weapon I could use with my good arm, and started heading in the only direction I could. It looked like Peter had sent all of our RIGs a route to the seventh floor. That must be where they were going to meet up again. I didn't know how long I had been out, but with any luck, I would be able to meet up with them too. They were the only connection I had left to humanity, and I wasn't ready to give that up quite yet.

Removing my helmet, as it was now useless, I could immediately hear that something was off. From around the corner came the sound of ripping flesh. But strangely, it wasn't accompanied by screams of pain. Rounding the corner, pistol raised, I was greeted by easily the most disturbing thing I had laid eyes on: a dead Slasher lay on the floor, its head and an arm both missing, and a dried pool of blood underneath it. Hovering over the dead creature was a man, or at least what used to be a man. The thing had gray waxy skin that revealed the outline of the creature's ribcage and other bones. And it was _eating _the dead Slasher. It was ripping off large pieces of flesh and tearing into them with blood covered teeth.

Realizing that it wasn't alone, the creature stopped eating mid bite and turned to face me. Letting out a horrible screech, it lunged at me, dropping its meal. Reacting quickly, I raised the pistol and shot it in the head three times, sending the thing flying back. Its head exploded open and it collapsed, now unmoving, next to the corpse of the Slasher.

_What the hell was that? _I thought to myself. It looked almost like a mummy or someone who had been dead for a really long time. And why the hell was it eating that Slasher? It must have been another type of Necromorph. _Well, that's just kriffing great. How many different kinds of these things are there?_ Shuddering, I told myself that I didn't want to know.

Quickly checking my HUD on my suit, I could see that everyone was still alive, but I couldn't see where they were. The damn mini map wasn't working, of course. And of course, this section of the base was covered in air vents. Great. Just add one more thing to the list of things that could make this day worse.

Well, all I could do was move forward. Let's just hope that the directions in my locator were the right ones.

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><p><strong>Well there you go. Sorry this was such a short chapter. I just needed to get that part over with. Hope you enjoyed it and remember, leave a review!<strong>


	18. Kyrogue

**Hey guys! I'm really amazed at all the support that you guys are giving me. Based on how many views the story has been getting lately, it looks like it will be getting over 1000 visitors again! You guys are really awesome. And a big thanks goes out to Kyrogue. He's been following the story since practically day one over a year ago and has shown continued support. Thanks to Quarmbone as well!**

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><p>(Isaac, around the same time.)<p>

We had been able to follow Peter's directions up to the fourth floor, only running into a single stray Slasher along the way. Unfortunately, we had hit a dead end.

"Well that's just great," said Ashley, glaring at the large door in front of us, a red cross surrounded by a white and red halo painted onto the door. A scrolling sign above the door indicated that we stood in front of the medical wing's only front door. Where a cyan disk of light should have been indicating the door was open, there was nothing, not even an orange disk of light to show that it was locked. The cause of the lack of power to the door was shown by a vacant energy plug embedded in the wall to the left of the door. Someone had removed the battery, a trail of blood leading down the hall to the left. Our mini-maps had shown that the only possible way to proceed was through the medical wing.

"AHHGG! I would love to know what kriffing idiot thought it was a good idea to construct a building where all the stairs only go up ONE KRIFFING FLOOR!" Screaming again, she took out her beam katana and started hacking and slashing at the door, not even leaving a scratch, the blade simply bouncing off the metal surface.

"Don't waste your energy," said Arisia, examining the energy plug next to the door. "Those doors were meant to be able to withstand explosives. Anything short of a thermal charge won't even put a dent in the thing."

"Dammit!" yelled Ashley backing up and hurling a piece of rubble at the door, make a metallic ping as it ricocheted off the door, bouncing back to her feet.

"If we could find the battery for that door, we could move on, but we would need a TK module to move it," I said. Those things weighed a ton, and there was no way we would be able to put it into the slot on the wall without kinesis. "Anyone have one?" I asked, knowing the chances were slim. Three shaking heads gave me my answer.

"What now?" said Rei, looking between me and Arisia for an answer. Arisia pulled up her mini-map, adjusting the hologram to show where we were. Behind us was the stairwell, with the locked door in front of us and two hallways branching out on either side. Arisia highlighted two points on the map, both at the farthest edges of the two hallways.

"Here, and... here," she said pointing to the two areas. "That's a storage room at the end of that hall." She motioned to the hall to the left. "There should be an extra kinesis module in there as well as another battery."

"What about that other area you highlighted?" asked Rei, pointing at the map.

"Over here is a store and a bench. It might be in our best interest if we split up: two of us to get supplies and enhance what equipment we have, and two of us to get the kinesis module and the battery."

"Is it really such a great idea for us to split up?" I said. We should stick together; we didn't want to have to worry about where the others were.

"We don't have a choice," she said. "If we all go to both rooms it'll take too much time, and we need the amp and health packs." I thought about that for a moment. She had a point.

"Fine. Rei, come with me, we'll go get supplies," I said. Arisia moved as if to protest, but I cut her off. "I'm an engineer, I'm the best person here for fixing up our weapons. Plus I have a ton of power nodes on me, so it only makes sense that I go."

"Fair enough, then Ashley and I will get the stasis module and battery."

"Just one more thing," I said, as they started to walk away. "Let me take your rivet gun and plasma cutter. You have a pistol and I can give Ashley my plasma cutter. It can't be upgraded any more than it already is. I'll upgrade yours for you." They both handed me their weapons and with a quick 'good luck', they were on their way.

"Alright, let's go," I said to Rei, who nodded quickly, holding her plasma cutter at her waist.

The hall was shrouded in darkness, with the lights occasionally flickering, offering a second of light every moment or two. If it hadn't been for the flashlights attached to our plasma cutters, it would have been impossible to tell where we were going. All the doors we had passed were locked; some were covered with blood stains – left, no doubt, by the monsters lurking in the shadows. It wasn't until we had been walking for a few minutes that we came across a door at the end of the hallway, a cyan disc of light flickering letting us know we could proceed.

Waving my hand over the sensor, the word 'OPEN' changed to a white spinning circle in the middle of the disk before there was a metal click and the door slid open. Inside was a large open room, probably meant as a break room, with four pillars spread apart in the middle of the room holding up the ceiling. There were numerous round tables filling up the center of the room, playing cards abandoned on some, poker chips on others. On the back wall were three soldiers haphazardly stabbed into the wall, suspended about a foot above the ground right next to the store and bench. The room's power, it seemed, was working, unlike the rest of the hall. The tables and floor were covered in blood. Whatever had happened here hadn't ended well.

"Stop right there!" came a voice from the left side of the room. Quickly raising our plasma cutters in the direction of the voice, we saw someone – a teenager, about sixteen, maybe seventeen years old. He had in one hand a pulse rifle aimed at us and in front of him was a metal spike, hovering in the air aimed at us. It was clear that he had a kinesis module.

"Who are you? Why are you here?" he said, not taking his eyes off of us. He was dressed in an advanced engineering suit, his voice the only thing betraying his age.

"Calm down. We aren't here to hurt you," I said, slowly raising my hands. I gestured to Rei to do the same. "We aren't military, I'm just borrowing the suit. We got split up from our friends and we were just looking for them."

"In a military base? That seems a bit odd to me," he said, not easing up.

"We were rescued by a soldier who said that the safest place to be would be here, but when we managed to get inside, we found that everyone was dead and the entrance was locked. Some bitch on the ninth floor has the key and we need to find her and get out of here."

"A girl? How old do you think she is?" He dropped the spike and lowered his pulse rifle.

"I would guess around sixteen by her voice. We don't really know anything about her. But she definitely knows something about all this shit that's happening. Why?" He looked thoughtful for a moment.

Before he could say anything else, an alarm sounded, orange spinning lights activating around the room.

"Quarantine lockdown engaged. Foreign contaminant detected," the monotone female voice of the computer announced, sealing us in.

"Shit, those things must be coming! Listen," I said, raising my plasma cutter towards the vents. "You can question us all you want, but right now we're going to need to work together!"

"Fine!" He yelled over the alarm, moving closer to us. Things just kept getting better and better.

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><p><strong>Well there you go. I've decided that I'm going to cut this off at 25 chapters and then write a sequel that's purely DS when I'm done. Thanks for your continued support guys!<strong>


	19. Another Tragedy

**Well here's chapter 19. Again, I have a basic idea of where I'm going with this but I'm still kind of winging it. Well enjoy, the chapters should start getting longer now.**

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><p><em>(Isaac)<em>

The three of us were backed up near the door we had come through, all aiming our weapons at separate vents, ready for what was about to come. Before any necromorphs could burst out of the vents, our RIGs all opened up holo-links, a young girl with long black hair appearing on the screen.

"Arisia?" Rei said confused under her breath. It did look like Arisia, but instead of a school girl's uniform she wore a black dress with a beam katana hanging from her waist.

"Now there's a name I haven't heard in a while," the look alike said, smirking. "No I'm not Arisia. My name is Deniera Enya, not like it matters to you since the three of you are about to die!" she said and started to laugh.

"You bitch, I don't intend to die yet, especially with you still alive!" The other guy spoke up. They obviously knew each other somehow. This must be the same girl who had the card key.

"Ah, Kyrogue. So you survived I see. I guess I underestimated your skill with those blades of yours. But don't worry, I won't make that mistake again. Ah, and it looks like my other pet is almost upon you! Now it's only a matter of time before you all are dead. As for you Isaac Clarke, yes, I know who you are, the others that you were with? They should be dead by now. My centipede is taking care of them, shall we say, as we speak. But don't worry. Sweet convergence will be upon you very soon!" Laughing again, she terminated the link, leaving us with the sound of something big coming through the vents.

"What the hell is that?" I yelled, the three of us adjusting our aim to the vent in the back.

"I don't know," said Kyrogue, his pulse rifle trained on the source of the sound. "Take this, you might need it."

He tossed me a stasis module, equipping it as fast as I could. The banging was getting closer. It would be there any second.

"Here it comes, get ready!" I said, tensing up. Almost immediately, a slasher burst through the vent, crouching on the floor before standing at least seven feet tall. But this one was bigger. It was at least twice as large as a normal slasher with massive claw arms and glowing yellow eyes, glaring menacingly through the orange-red light of the quarantine.

Without a second thought, we filled the fucker with bolts of compressed energy, cutting off both of it's arms and filling it's torso with holes, but it kept on coming, barely phased by it's loss of limbs.

"What the hell..." Kyrogue muttered under his breath. Where it's arms used to be were jolting in quick spasms, getting longer and more defined. "It's regenerating!"

Oh that wasn't good. He was right, the holes in its torso closing up as well. Hitting it with stasis, I yelled at the other two to follow me.

"We need to get out of here, now!" I yelled, shooting the regenerator's legs off. That stasis wouldn't last forever.

"How? The doors locked and that's the only way out of here!" Kyrogue was right, but there was another way.

"The vents," I said, knowing that it sounded crazy.

"What? Are you kriffing insane? That's how these bastards get around! It's suicide!"

"It's the only way!" I shot another burst of stasis at the creature as it's blue glow began to fade.

"Agh, fine! I'll get the vent open. Just cover me!"

He made a beeline to the vent to the left, the one that most likely led back to the door to medical. As if on queue, the two other vents burst open, two leapers emerging from each.

"Oh that's just perfect. Rei, help me out!" I hated these things.

The first came running at me, leaping into the air with it's blood soaked jaws open. Quickly hitting it with my last burst of stasis, I shot it out of the air, dead for good now. The other one from the right vent went after Rei, meeting a similar fate.

"Kyrogue, the vent!"

"It's almost off!" He yelled back.

The other leapers were keeping to the ground, not wanting to share the fate of their siblings. The one to our left ran at Kyrogue first, being the closest target. I went to shoot and was greeted by a click.

"Crap!" Taking out the line gun with the leaper only a second away from Kyrogue, I shot a Hail Mary round without aiming. As the shot flew threw through the air it felt like an eternity, not a second or too before it reached it's mark, cutting the creature completely in half, taking off it's tail and a single arm. It collapsed, completely still. Rei again showed her marksmanship by severing the leapers head and arms in mid-air, the carcass dropping like a rock.

"Good job!" I told her, still keeping an eye on the other vents.

"Thanks! I'm only getting be-" she was cut off as a thick blade erupted from her chest, replacing her voice with a gurgle as blood clogged her wind pipes. The regenerator had healed itself and without stasis, we hadn't noticed.

"REI!" I screamed, watching in horror as the bastard tore into her, lifting her up in the air while stabbing her repeatedly. Finally bringing it's arm back, it swiped up for the last time taking her head off and letting the body drop to the floor. "You son of a BITCH!" Screaming, my eyes red with rage, I opened fire with the plasma cutter, sending the entire clip into the bastards arms and legs, severing them all.

"It's open!" Kyrogue yelled, jumping into the vent, shooting a burst of stasis at the squirming regenerator. "Come on, we need to go. Now!"

Taking one last look at Rei's mangled body, I turned and followed him into the vent. That bitch would pay for what she did to her.

...

(Arisia)

We had been walking for quite some time before we came to the crossway in the hall. The whole way Ashley had been humming to herself, a slight skip in her step, like everything was perfectly fine. There was something familiar about her but I couldn't put my finger on. The beam katana's she had were obviously made by someone with killed hands. The craftsmanship was almost identical to... No, she wouldn't bring those memories back, not if she didn't have to.

Quickly checking the holo map to see which way to go, I motioned to the hall to the right, Ashley singing, "_OO-kk!" _I just shook my head, letting out a short laugh. She sure was something. Shining the flash light attached to her rivet gun down the hall, she could see the light reflect off of the heavy steel door, a blue glow in the middle. At least it was unlocked.

I needed to ask her about those swords. It was nagging at the back of my mind what it would mean if I was right about the maker of the blades. It would bring back so many memories that I didn't want though. Was it really worth it? No, I had to suck it up and ask.

"Ashley," I said.

"Yeah?"

"Those beam katanas you have, how did you come upon them?"

"Oh these little things? They were given to me a few years ago. I guess about three years ago. Why?"

"Well, were you trained to use them by someone? You have the skill of someone who's had them for a really long time."

"Nope! I just picked them up and knew what I was doing, like instinct, you know?"

"And who gave them to you?"

"This guy in a lab coat. He had big round glasses and told me to use them to protect myself."

I wasn't liking where this was going.

"Well, the necromorphs silly. What else would I really need to protect myself from? Except for those guys with guns. They aren't good. What's with all the serious questions and everything?"

I was right then.

"Oh, it's noting really, I was just curious." This girl, she had to be one of the five. She had to be. There was a chance that she didn't know what she was, but if she was here then the others must be too, or at least close by. There was no way any of them would let these things get the better of them. Were they all safe? I couldn't remember any of them really, but they had all gotten out on their own, so they should be able to handle themselves.

"Come on, Ari! We need to get going!" Ashley was calling from the door. I hadn't realized I had stopped moving.

"I'm coming!" I called down, jogging to the door. Placing my hand on the glowing blue disk, I opened the door, stepping into a dark storage room. There were crates stacked neatly all around the large room. the room itself was at least two stories high, crates with blue kinesis symbols on them stacked to the ceiling practically.

"Ok, the kinesis module and power battery should be around here somewhere. Ashley, do you think you could find a power switch or something? We need the lights. I can hardly see anything."

"I'll see what I can do!" She said, bouncing off into the gloom, her sword the only source of light at her disposal. Raising my own pistol, the flash light attached to the underside of the weapon cut through the darkness, giving slightly more detail to the bland storage crates.

Looking around, I couldn't find the kinesis module or the battery.

"Where is it?" I muttered under my breath, getting frustrated. She had been looking for at least ten minutes. And where was Ashley? I hadn't heard from her since since she went off to find the power. What was taking her so long. Opening a link to Ashley's RIG, I called her name.

"Ashley, are you there?"

After a few tense moments in silence, the vid screen popped up, with Ashley in the middle.

"Hey Ari, sorry I'm taking so long, but we have a _teensy _problem."

"What problem?" I asked getting nervous.

"Well, I found the power battery for the med area, but, well, it's being guarded."

"Guarded? By what?"

"Well, ah, the centipede."

My heart sank. The centipede? We had barely managed to fight the thing off when there were six of us. And now we were only two strong.

"Where are you? I'll come and help. Don't fight it on your own!"

"Heh, heh, I think it's a bit late for that." Oh no.

"Why?" I asked, afraid of the answer.

"It kinda saw me." Oh that really wasn't good. "I'll distract it! I'm to fast for it anyways. You get the kinesis thingy and the battery! I can handle this!"

"No, Ashley, don't!"

"To late!" she said, cutting the connection. All of a sudden, from the other side of the storage area I could hear something crashing, followed by a roar. I had no choice. I _had _to get the stasis module and battery. Running towards the sound, the light from the flashlight bouncing up and down. It was getting louder and I could hear Ashley taunting it, drawing it away from where I needed to be.

"Come on you big dummy! You want a piece of me?" How was she so upbeat in a situation like this?

Rounding the corner, I saw the battery, the kinesis module right on top of it. _There it is. _Running forward, I grabbed the kinesis module, attaching it to my wrist, the mechanics of it integrating itself into my suit. "Perfect." Right then, something flew through the crates, knocking them over, and slammed against the wall next to me. It was Ashley! Running over, I knelt by her side, shaking her.

"Oh my god, Ashley, are you ok? Ashley!"

"Whaisit, Ahhhrisia, heeeeeey, youneedtokillthethingggyyyyy!"

Oh no, she must have hit her head when it threw her! It was going to take some time before she could do anything really.

"Ashley, just stay here, don't move. I'll kill it!"

"Okeedokie then!" She almost sounded drunk.

She had dropped her beam katana, it lay deactivated next to her arm. Picking it up, I pressed the activation rune, igniting the pure blue energy to form a blade. It was time to get serious. It had been a long time since I had used one of these and I hopefully hadn't lost any of my skill.

The centipede burst through the crates and boxes, shattering some and scattering others. It was more disturbing to look at then before. It looked like Ashley had cut it down a bit, a black burn charring the base of the creature. One of it's 'bodies' lay still, the one Mr. Clarke had shot earlier.

With the sword in one hand and my pistol in the other, I took up a defensive stance as it turned to face me, it's roar splitting the air like a banshee. Closing my eyes, I let myself focus. Taking in a deep breath then exhaling, I opened my eyes again, ready now. This thing had to have a weakness, and if I remember correctly, it was the bodies underneath. If I killed all the smaller bodies that made up the legs then I should be able to kill it. I would have to get close though.

Screaming again, it charged. Running forward, I jumped on top of an overturned crate and leapt through the air, flying over the creature. Landing right behind it, part of it's bottom half swung to slice at me. Parrying it's blow, I killed part of it and severed the arms on another, jumping back a safe distance.

Howling in pain, all six remaining bodies turned to me, some of their claws cutting through empty space. It swung two blades down at me, which I easily dodged, but a third came out of the darkness, cutting through my armour, leaving a deep gash from my chest to my stomach. Stumbling backwards, I felt the cut quickly, there was no blood. It had only cut my armour! Steadying myself, I faced the beast again.

"I won't let you hurt my friend!" I yelled, grasping the beam katana tighter in my grip. It charged again, flat against the floor. I had to finish this, and quick. I ran straight at it, it's blood soaked fangs and and claws glicening in the little light there was. I shot at it, destroying it's front head, veering it off course. The rest of it's body confused, it charged straight into the wall, it's body splayed, trying to run vertically. Taking the oportunity, I ran at it and jumped high into the air, raising the sword high.

"Aggghhh!"

I screamed as I brought the blade straight down the middle of the creature, severing it into two equally deformed tragedies of flesh blood and bone.

"Well I guess that's that," I said to myself, wiping the blood off my face. It was no use though. Shedding the suit, useless now due to the damage delt by the now dead centipede, all I had was my school uniform. If I took another hit like the one I had, well, I didn't want to think about it.

I ran over to Ashley, making sure she was alright. When I got to her, she was already standing up, leaning against the wall for a bit aid support.

"Good job Ari!" She said in her usual cheery voice. "I just need a minute to get better then we can take the battery and look for Laura, Peter, and the card key!"

"That's okay, take your time. And then yes, we can go look for our friends." It was reassuring to k ow that she was okay. But what if the wound had been more severe? Well there was no point in thinking about that now, was there? Ah well, at least she was safe.

At least for now.

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><p><strong>Well there ya go. I tried to make it as long as possible but I felt that about 3k was enough. Hope you enjoyed it and I'm happy to see new people reviewing! Thank you all for the support!<strong>


	20. A dish best served cold

**Hey guys, nice to see so many of you are sticking with the story all the way through! Hope you enjoy this next one!**

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><p>(Isaac)<p>

They were running as fast as they could, the Regenerator somewhere behind them, its powerful roar echoing through the corridor. They were both breathing heavy when they saw the glow of the power outlet.

"There!" I yelled. "We need to hold it off until Ashley and Arisia get back with battery!" Skidding to a halt in front of the door, we turned to face the oncoming horror.

"Are you sure they're okay? That bitch Deniera said she sent something after them. Can you try to contact them? I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to fight this thing for longer then I need too."

"I can try!" I reply, attempting to establish a link between Arisia's and my RIG.

"Arisia? Arisia, are you there?" I say into the comlink, not getting a response. We could hear it getting closer; it would be on us in less than a minute.

"Hey man, we really need to know if they're coming or not!"

I yell back "I'm trying! Arisia, are you there?" The audio crackled to life and Ashley's voice came through.

"We'll be there in a minute!" she sang, still unnaturally cheery. "Arisia's hands are a bit full with the battery, so I picked up!"

"Ok Ashley, we need you two here, NOW. We have something following us and we won't be able to hold it off for long. Shit!" We could see the regenerator coming at us now. Roaring, it charged.

Terminating the link I raised the plasma cutter at the bastard. "Fuck you!" I yelled, opening fire. The guy next to me did the same, the bursts of energy from his cutter tearing the creature's limbs off.

Falling to the floor, it started writhing, like it was having a seizure as its limbs slowly grew back; the holes in its body quickly filling up. I hit it with stasis before anything could grow back completely.

"Once we get through those doors, we shouldn't have to deal with this thing for a while. Those vents won't connect with anywhere inside the medical wing, but after that, I don't know."

"I have a feeling this won't be the last time we'll see this thing." I said, still aiming the plasma cutter at the regenerator. The blue glow was starting to disappear from its body. "Dammit, why can't these damn things recharge faster? I don't have another shot!"

"I only have one left, so I'll have to make it count!" The regenerator got back to its feet slowly, its claw arms nearly completely regenerated now.

"Shit!" I said under my breath. Where were those two?

"What the hell is _that_?" Glancing behind me, I saw Ashley and Arisia, the battery hovering in front of Arisia. Hope fills my chest and calms my terror wracked mind at the sight of them.

"Long story, get the battery in place! We need to get out of here _now_." Hearing the urgency in my voice, she rushes over to the socket and places the battery in place, the door switching to a glowing blue.

"Everyone one inside, now!" he said, still shooting at the Regenerator, its twitching body falling to the ground again. "Hit it now!" I yelled, motioning for Ashley and Arisia to go through the door.

Firing a final burst of stasis at the creature, he ran to the battery.

"What are you doing? We need to get out of here!" I yell to him, motioning for him to follow us.

"We need to blow the battery and cut off power to the door. We can't take the risk that this thing can open doors!" He yells back in response, getting to the battery.

"Good idea." We'd be in a pile of shit if it did manage to do that.

He took something cylindrical off of the bottom of his pulse rifle and slammed it onto the center of the battery, pressing something on the back of it.

"Go, now!" He yelled, running through the medical wing door. Just as it closed behind us, we could hear the explosion from the other side. "Well, I think that did it."

"Hey," Ashley looked confused for a moment and was looking around. "Where's Rei?"

I let my head fall. "She... didn't make it. The Regenerator got her."

"There was nothing you could do?" Arisia's face was a play of emotion, her soft and her cynical halves warring with each other.

"No, it was just so quick." I say, regret painfully clear in my voice.

We all just stood there in silence for a bit, Ashley tearing up. Was there anything I could have done differently? Could I have been more observant? It was all a bit irrelevant the moment. We had to keep moving, I would just have to take out my anger on the bitch that put us in this situation in the first place. Deniera Enya... She would pay for what she had done.

"Losing Rei was a hard loss on us, but we can't stop here. If we don't get moving, that thing will catch up to us, and we don't want to waste the amo, especially since we didn't get anymore supplies." Arisia and Ashley just nodded.

"Before we get moving, I haven't properly introduced myself. My name is Kyrogue, it's a pleasure to meet you all. I just wish it wasn't in such... crappy conditions."

So his name was Kyrogue. Nodding I gestured to Arisia and Ashley.

"This is Ashley and Arisia. As for me, my name is Isaac Clarke. We had two others with us, but we were separated when we were attacked by a centipede like necromorph. We're on our way to the seventh floor to meet up with them. Hopefully..."

...

_Meanwhile... (Laura)_

Things weren't looking good for me. I only had one more ten-round clip for the pistol with four shots left in the current clip. Ammo conservation was key considering I still had five floors to go before she found Enya.

Although I might have to save a round for myself the way things were going... No. I wouldn't let it come to that. I wasn't going to let my first and probably my last contract be a failure. Enya _will die._ Even if it's the last thing I do.

Checking to make sure my stasis was full, I stopped in some kind of food storage room, the sound of ripping flesh coming from the other side of the petition separating the two halves of the rooms. _What the hell is that?_ Peering around the corner, I froze. There were at least fifteen feeders, small groups of them tearing into corpses splayed on the floor. If I took them all out, that would be the last of my amp... Crap, and there wasn't enough room to get around them without them noticing me.

Quickly looking around, I found what I was looking for. Propped against the back wall was an orange explosive canister. If it blew, it would get seven or eight of them in its blast radius.

I would still have six or seven to deal with though. Dammit, was there anything else I could do? Another quick search bringing up nothing, I took a deep breath and aimed with my good arm, shaking slightly.

Trying to steady my hand, I took another deep breath, and fired.

The bolt of energy penetrated the canister, followed by a brilliant explosion as the gasses ignited, incinerating almost all of the feeders, leaving only two remaining. I guess I had misjudged the explosions power; by a lot. The two survivors turned towards me, leaving their bloody meal and screeching.

Taking aim at the first on, I shot twice, the second round popping the thing's head like a balloon, decayed brain matter and blood splashing the floor around it. The second one pounced on me before I could shoot it, its claw like hands trying to grab my head, slamming me hard against the floor.

Struggling to keep it away from my face, I felt around with my wounded arm for the pistol, praying it was within reach as I held the feeder back with my good hand.

My hand finally closed around the butt of the pistol. I took it and used it as a bludgeon to slam the thing off of me.

"Go to hell!"

I rolled over and fired the last two shots into the bastards head. _Dammit, _I thought._ My arm is bringing me down__…__there has to be a way of fixing it faster._ Arisia must have some way of speeding up the process. It would be a good hour or two before I could shoot an arrow again, but I didn't have an hour or two. I had to keep moving; otherwise I would get left behind. That bastard Peter would probably come up with some story about me getting taken out, with nothing he could do.

Getting up, I checked the map again, mentally mapping out my route. It looked like there was a working elevator to the seventh floor from the fifth which would save me the trouble of fighting through a floor and a half. Now I just had to get there.

Slamming my final clip into the pistol, I went for the door, determination resolute in me. _Only five floors to go._

* * *

><p><strong>Hey, This is another short one. I just didn't have the brain power the past few weeks to write more th<strong>**a****n this, what with finals and AP exams. I hope you enjoyed it anyway! Oh, and I'm going to be starting a Bioshock fan fic soon, too. I had a great idea for a novel, so I figured I should start and commit to it, at least one chapter worth, before I get lazy and forget about it.**


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